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BY 


CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN 


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Yale  Talks 


Yale  Talks 

by  • 

Charles  Reynolds  Brown 

Dean  of  the  School  of  Religion 
Yale  University 


New   Haven 
Yale  University  Press 

London  :  Humphrey  Milford  :  Oxford  University  Press 

Mdccccxx 


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€   •         •      •  .•    t     I 


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COPYRIGHT,    1919,    BY 
YALE  UNIVERSITY    PRESS 


First  published,  1 9 1 9 
Second  printing,   1920 


Foreword 

THESE  "Talks"  were  given  in  Battell  Chapel 
at  Yale  University.  Some  of  them  were  also 
given  at  Harvard,  Princeton,  Columbia,  Cornell, 
Amherst,  Williams,  Bowdoin,  Brown  and  other 
colleges.  In  putting  them  in  book  form  I  have 
retained  the  more  intimate  style  of  direct  address 
as  best  preserving  the  atmosphere  of  personal 
conference  in  which  they  were  first  uttered.  They 
are  brought  together  here  in  the  hope  that  they 
may  be  of  use  to  other  young  men  who  are  making 
up  their  minds  as  to  their  mode  of  life  and  decid- 
ing upon  the  purposes  which  are  to  rule  the  great 
years  that  lie  ahead. 

Chas.  R.  Brown. 
Yale  University, 
June  i8,  1919. 


463420 


CHAPT 

Contents 

ER 

PAGE 

I. 

The  True  Definition  of  a  Man  .      . 

9 

II. 

The  Value  of  an  Empty  Purse  . 

24 

III. 

The  Lure  of  Goodness  .      .      .      . 

39 

IV. 

How  Old  Are  You?"  .... 

55 

V. 

The  Power  of  a  Resolute  Minority  . 

71 

VI. 

Unconscious  Influence   . 

.       84 

VII. 

The  Lessons  of  Failure  . 

.       97 

VIII. 

The  Men  Who  Make  Excuse  . 

112 

IX. 

The  Power  of  Sentiment     . 

126 

X. 

The  Wounds  of  Wrongdoing     . 

.     141 

I 

The  True  Definition  of  a  Man 

THERE  is  one  question  I  would  like  to  ask 
you  now  that  the  examinations  are  over.  It 
is  a  question  every  fellow  must  answer  as  he 
makes  his  way  up  to  his  maturity  and  when  he 
gets  his  marks  they  are  not  made  on  paper,  they 
are  made  on  him.  He  may  not  answer  my  ques- 
tion in  writing,  but  he  will  answer  it  in  the  choice 
he  makes  of  a  ruling  ambition.  How  would  you 
define  a  man?    What  does  it  mean  to  be  a  man? 

Wlien  we  look  back  we  find  that  a  great  variety 
of  answers  has  been  given  to  this  question. 
There  was  a  time  when  everybody  said,  "Man  is 
a  victim."  He  is  "a  victim  crying  in  the  night  and 
with  no  language  but  a  cry."  He  is  cursed  by  the 
gods,  doomed  to  eat  his  bread  by  hard  labor  in 
the  sweat  of  his  brow.  He  is  at  the  mercy  of  all 
manner  of  demons  and  hobgoblins  with  which  the 
ancients  peopled  the  unseen  world.  He  is  a  poor 
worm  of  the  dust,  not  entitled  to  hold  up  his  head 
among  these  titanic  forces  which  are  hostile  to 
him.  "Man  is  a  victim,"  and  they  said  it  with  a 
whine. 

We  find  a  curious  remnant  of  that  notion  in  our 


"  •'''^''-  Yale  Talks 

own  day.  Some  men  are  still  saying,  "Heredity 
and  environment  have  us  bound  hand  and  foot." 
They  insist  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  freedom, 
no  power  of  initiative,  no  will  to  choose.  Man 
does  not  as  he  chooses,  but  as  he  must.  We  are 
what  we  are  by  the  operation  of  forces  which  we 
cannot  control.  Whatever  is  had  to  be,  whatever 
will  be  will  be,  whether  we  like  it  or  not.  Gloomy, 
disheartened  determinism  is  not  confined  to  a  few 
sad-eyed  philosophers  shut  up  in  a  closet — it  is 
sometimes  proclaimed  from  the  housetops  and 
preached  at  the  street  corners.  There  are  those 
who  still  insist  that  man  is  a  helpless  victim. 

But  that  idea  has  largely  passed  for  people  who 
are  in  sound  health  mentally  as  well  as  physically. 
Man  saw  a  long  time  ago  that  he  need  not  be  a 
poor  shuddering  victim.  He  saw  that  he  could 
have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea  and  the 
fowl  of  the  air,  over  the  cattle  and  the  creeping 
things.  He  saw  that  he  could  compel  heat  and 
light,  gravitation  and  electricity  to  minister  to 
his  own  comfort  and  progress.  He  began  to  make 
himself  at  home  among  these  titanic  forces.  He 
learned  to  stand  erect  and  to  read.  He  began  to 
face  the  world  undaunted.  And  whatever  answer 
we  might  get  from  Young  America  today  we  may 
be  sure  that  it  would  not  accept  the  verdict  that 
man  is  a  victim. 

We  come  then  to  a  second  answer  which  has 
more  edge  on  it.    How  would  you  define  a  man? 

10 


I — True  Definition  of  a  Man 

There  was  a  time  when  everyone  said,  "Man  is  a 
fighter."  He  stood  in  a  militant  attitude,  fighting 
the  common  enemies  of  hunger  and  cold,  disease 
and  death,  fighting  also  the  neighboring  tribes  and 
making  enemies  of  them.  Every  man  was  meas- 
ured by  the  length  and  the  strength  of  his  sword. 
The  greatest  man  in  the  tribe  was  the  man  who 
could  kill  the  largest  number  of  his  enemies 
without  being  killed  in  the  process. 

In  ancient  Israel  Saul  was  made  king  because 
he  stood  head  and  shoulders  above  his  fellows. 
He  was  neither  a  wise  man  nor  a  good  man,  but  he 
was  a  big,  strapping,  successful  fighter  and  they 
crowned  him.  In  mediaeval  Europe  the  men  most 
honored  were  the  plumed  knights  and  the  hel- 
meted  warriors,  who  went  forth  with  sword  and 
spear  to  fight  their  good  fights.  In  Japan  the 
ancient  aristocracy,  the  Samurai,  belonged  entirely 
to  the  military  class.  War  was  a  trade  and  the 
trade  held  in  highest  esteem.  If  we  had  asked  our 
question  then,  the  answer  would  have  come  back 
with  a  clash  of  steel — "Man  is  a  fighter." 

We  find  also  a  considerable  remnant  of  that 
idea  in  our  own  day.  The  ladies  have  a  way  of 
indicating  that  their  gentle  hearts  are  strangely 
stirred  by  the  sight  of  marching  men  in  khaki. 
And  men  will  pay  larger  sums  of  money  for  a 
briefer  period  of  entertainment  to  witness  a  prize 
fight  than  for  almost  any  kind  of  performance 
which  can  be  named.    The  most  respectable  na- 

II 


Yale  Talks 

tions  show  a  strange  satisfaction  in  their  Krupp 
guns  and  dreadnoughts.  If  we  should  ask  our 
question  now,  in  some  quarters  the  answer  would 
still  come  back,  "Man  is  a  fighter." 

But  that  mood  is  passing.  The  high  office  of 
civilization  is  not  to  destroy  men's  lives  but  to 
save  them  and  train  them  in  productive  effort. 
The  swords  will  have  to  be  beaten  into  plough- 
shares. With  the  keen  competition  and  the  close 
margins  in  business,  we  have  no  steel  to  waste. 
The  bright  metal  of  the  nation's  young  manhood 
must  more  and  more  move  out  along  those  lines 
of  action  which  are  productive  rather  than  de- 
structive. 

I  say  all  this  in  the  face  of  the  most  terrible  war 
which  has  ever  devastated  the  earth.  Where  there 
were  ten  men  five  years  ago  thinking  about  "a 
league  of  nations,"  or  some  other  effective  method 
of  keeping  the  peace  and  good  order  of  the  world, 
now  there  are  a  hundred.  The  thought  of  making 
the  idea  of  public  justice  the  determining  factor 
in  the  life  of  the  race  has  been  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  impossible  dreamers  and  brought  upon 
the  map  of  practical  statesmanship.  The  ideals 
of  the  common  people  have  been  changing  rapidly. 
When  the  people  of  France  were  asked  some  ten 
years  ago  to  express  their  judgment  in  a  great 
popular  vote  as  to  who  was  the  greatest  French- 
man in  history,  nine  millions  of  ballots  were  cast. 
When  the  votes  were  counted,  it  was  found  that 

12 


I — True  Definition  of  a  Man 

the  largest  number  had  not  been  given  to  Napo- 
leon, the  man  of  battles,  who  destroyed  the  lives 
of  a  million  men.  The  largest  number  had  been 
given  to  Pasteur,  the  man  of  science,  who  in  the 
quiet  work  of  his  laboratory  laid  the  foundations 
for  saving  the  lives  of  untold  millions.  Man  is 
not  mainly  nor  permanently  a  fighter. 

We  come  then  to  a  third  and  more  practical 
answer — "Man  is  a  producer,  a  money-maker." 
The  greatest  man  in  any  group  is  the  man  who 
makes  the  most,  if  he  makes  it  honestly.  Men 
go  about  measuring  each  other  not  with  yard- 
sticks, nor  by  the  length  of  their  swords,  but  with 
bank  notes.  Here  is  a  man  who  is  fifty  thousand 
feet  high!  Here  is  another  man  who  is  one  hun- 
dred thousand  feet  high.  Here  is  a  third  man  who 
is  a  million  feet  high — he  is  a  millionaire!  And 
here  at  the  side  is  a  poor  chap  who  is  decidedly 
"short."    He  is  no  taller  than  thirty  cents. 

The  love  of  money  lies  at  the  root  of  all  manner 
of  things  good  and  bad.  It  stirs  up  wholesome 
ambitions  and  it  arouses  the  meanest  desires  of 
the  heart.  The  wish  to  better  one's  condition  is 
honest  and  legitimate,  but  the  spirit  of  greed 
becomes  responsible  for  the  lowest  vices  and 
crimes. 

There  are  men  who  believe  in  what  they  call 
"the  economic  interpretation  of  history."  They 
insist  that  history  was  not  shaped  by  great  men 
nor  by  great  principles,  but  by  the  economic  con- 

13 


Yale  Talks 
ditions  under  which  men  found  themselves.  Men 
were  thrust  in  this  direction  or  in  that  by  their 
love  of  wealth  or  by  their  lack  of  it.  They  insist 
that  the  desire  for  gain  has  been  the  determining 
principle  in  human  action. 

I  can  not  hold  with  them,  but  I  confess  that 
there  is  something  about  the  career  of  a  man  who 
organizes  and  develops  some  industry  to  the  point 
where  he  accumulates  a  large  fortune  which 
appeals  to  me  strongly.  The  people  who  inherit 
their  wealth  do  not  necessarily  amount  to  any- 
thing— all  they  had  to  do  was  to  wait  for  some- 
body to  die.  The  men  who  gamble  for  their 
fortunes,  whether  they  do  it  on  the  stock  exchange 
or  at  a  green  table,  are  not  interesting  to  me — in 
order  to  become  rich  they  made  other  men  poor. 
But  the  man  who  goes  out  with  nothing  but  his 
own  energy  of  body  and  cleverness  of  brain  to 
a  mill  or  a  mine,  a  farm  or  a  factory,  a  store  or  a 
railroad,  and  by  enlarging  the  scope  of  it  as  a 
social  utility  becomes  rich,  that  man  appeals  to 
me  most  strongly. 

And  I  have  noticed  that  the  young  man,  who 
talks  scornfully  about  money  and  money-making 
as  being  entirely  beneath  his  notice,  is  usually  in- 
sincere or  looney.  Money  is  a  very  nice  thing, 
a  very  necessary  thing,  and  no  man  of  sense 
speaks  scornfully  of  money.  And  because  the 
desire  for  gain  does  enter  so  powerfully  into 
human  experience,  if  we  should  ask  our  question 

14 


I — True  Definition  of  a  Man 

about  the  definition  of  a  man  in  the  market  place, 
the  answer  might  come  back  from  a  thousand 
throats,  "Man  is  a  money-maker,  and  the  greatest 
man  here  is  the  man  who  makes  the  most,  if  he 
makes  it  honestly." 

But  this  answer  will  not  stand.  It  leaves  un- 
provided for  great  areas  of  man's  nature.  We 
cannot  define  the  nature  or  measure  the  success 
of  any  man  in  terms  of  dollars  and  cents.  "How 
much  is  that  man  worth?"  we  sometimes  ask. 
Ordinarily  we  are  not  thinking  of  the  worth  of  the 
man,  but  merely  of  the  value  of  the  things  he 
happens  to  own.  This  can  be  easily  ascertained 
from  Bradstreet  or  the  assessor's  book  or  from 
his  report  on  income  tax.  The  worth  of  the  man 
is  another  question  altogether — it  turns  upon  his 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart,  upon  the  amount  of 
good  he  has  done  and  the  character  he  has  won. 
He  may  be  worth  a  great  deal  in  addition  to  the 
things  he  owns,  or  with  a  vast  abundance  of  things 
he  may  not  be  worth  enough  to  pay  for  the  powder 
and  shot  it  would  require  to  blow  him  up.  The 
worth  of  the  man  is  a  question  of  personality. 

The  current  ideals  are  changing  here.  When 
I  was  a  boy  the  names  of  the  richest  men  in 
America  were  names  to  conjure  with;  they  sent 
a  thrill  through  any  popular  audience.  The 
names  of  the  richest  men  in  America  today  are 
not  always  names  to  conjure  with.  It  all  depends 
upon  the  measure  of  public  spirit  and  the  quality 

15 


Yale  Talks 

of  personal  character  in  the  man.  The  thought 
of  man  as  a  money-maker  does  not  touch  the 
deeper  things  of  life,  and  this  answer,  therefore, 
will  not  stand. 

We  come  then  to  an  answer  which  would  re- 
ceive more  acceptance  on  a  college  campus — 
''Man  is  a  thinker."  The  true  measure  of  a  man 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  length  of  his  sword  or  in 
the  size  of  his  roll  of  bank  notes,  but  in  those 
curious  gray  convolutions  of  the  brain  which  make 
possible  his  intellectual  life.  The  man  of  insight 
and  judgment,  of  outlook  and  discrimination! 
The  man  of  original  and  creative  ability — ^here 
surely  we  find  man  at  his  best. 

And  if  the  man  can  not  only  think  but  write, 
then  how  great  he  becomes!  Here  is  a  man  who 
can  sit  down  without  weapons  or  wealth,  with  no 
army  at  his  back,  with  no  powerful  organization 
to  give  him  influence — with  nothing  but  pen, 
paper  and  ink!  By  what  he  writes  he  can  influ- 
ence men  by  the  thousand,  by  the  million,  it  may 
be!  Men  of  his  own  land  and  of  all  lands,  men 
of  his  own  day  and  men  of  generations  yet  un- 
born! There  is  not  an  hour  in  the  twenty- four 
when  the  sun  is  not  shining  straight  down  at  high 
noon  somewhere  on  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  and 
the  poems  of  Dante.  There  is  not  a  land  nor  a 
language  where  the  orations  of  Moses  and  Isaiah, 
the  songs  of  David  and  the  proverbs  of  Solomon, 
the  letters  of  Paul  and  the  parables  of  Jesus,  are 

i6 


I — True  Definition  of  a  Man 

not  exercising  their  influence  upon  the  aspirations 
and  the  conduct  of  men.  Great  is  the  man  who 
can  think,  and  think  until  he  has  something  to  say, 
and  then  say  it  in  such  fashion  as  to  lodge  his 
truth  in  the  life  of  the  race!  Surely  we  find  man 
here  at  his  best! 

We  have  coined  this  estimate  into  proverbs, 
"Knowledge  is  power."  "The  world  belongs  to 
the  man  who  knows."  "Wisdom  is  the  principal 
thing.  Therefore  get  wisdom  and  with  all  thy 
getting  get  understanding."  And  the  names  to 
conjure  with  today  are  the  names  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle  at  one  end  of  the  line  and  Kant  and 
Hegel,  Darwin  and  Huxley,  Edison  and  Metch- 
nikoff,  at  the  other.  These  are  the  men  who  show 
human  nature  at  its  best,  for  man  is  beyond  all 
else  a  thinker ! 

Now  far  be  it  from  me  to  utter  one  syllable  in 
depreciation  of  knowledge.  This  last  answer  is 
not  an  unworthy  one,  but  is  an  imperfect  one.  It 
does  not  reach  that  which  is  fundamental.  I  have 
passed  in  review  these  four  answers,  the  victim 
with  his  whine,  the  fighter  with  his  sword,  the 
money-maker  with  his  roll  of  bank  notes,  and  the 
thinker  with  his  book.  In  my  judgment  not  one 
of  them  is  worthy  to  stand. 

Here  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  suppose  we  ask 
the  Lord  Himself  how  He  would  define  a  man. 
We  will  appeal  from  these  lower  courts  to  the 
highest  in  order  to  have  a  Supreme  Court  decision 

17 


Yale  Talks 

on  this  vital  question.  "O  Thou  who  knowest 
what  was  in  man  and  needed  not  that  any  should 
tell  Thee,  how  wouldst  Thou  define  a  man?" 

Listen!  "Ye  know  that  among  the  Gentiles  the 
great  ones  exercise  lordship  and  dominion.  It 
shall  not  be  so  among  you.  If  any  man  would  be 
great  among  you,  let  him  serve.  The  greatest  of 
all  is  the  servant  of  all." 

Man  at  his  best  is  a  servant.  He  rises  as  he 
stoops  to  serve.  He  reaches  his  greatness  through 
his  competence  and  his  willingness  to  serve.  This 
is  what  the  Perfect  Man  said  and  this  is  what  the 
Perfect  IVIan  did.  "He  took  upon  Himself  the 
form  of  a  servant  and  went  about  doing  good." 
Wherefore  God  and  the  ages  have  exalted  Him 
until  His  name  is  above  every  name. 

You  can  see  at  a  glance  that  we  have  now 
reached  that  which  is  fundamental.  The  life  of 
any  individual  will  be  measured  and  estimated  in 
the  long  run  by  its  utility  in  serving  the  more 
permanent  interests  of  human  society.  In  the 
great  kingdom  of  moral  reality,  usefulness  is  the 
ultimate  standard.     Ideally,  "Man  is  a  servant." 

What  made  those  two  men,  born  the  same  year, 
one  on  that  side  of  the  water,  one  on  this,  men  so 
unlike  in  the  whole  outward  setting  of  their  lives 
and  so  essentially  in  agreement  in  spirit — what 
made  those  two  men,  William  Ewart  Gladstone 
and  Abraham  Lincoln  so  highly  esteemed  and  so 
widely  beloved  ? 

i8 


I — True  Definition  of  a  Man 

Gladstone  was  born  to  wealth,  his  home  was  in 
a  castle.  He  had  a  fine  social  position  from  the 
first,  every  house  in  England  was  open  to  him 
from  Buckingham  Palace  down.  He  had  all  that 
education  could  do  for  a  man — he  was  a  graduate 
of  Christ  Church  College  in  Oxford  University. 
He  enjoyed  the  benefits  of  foreign  travel.  He  was 
one  of  the  handsomest  men  of  his  day  and 
thoroughly  accustomed  to  all  of  the  amenities  of 
social  life  in  one  of  the  great  capitals  of  the  world. 
He  thrice  became  Prime  Minister  of  the  British 
Empire  and  was  esteemed  great. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  poor.  He  was  born  in  a 
log  cabin.  He  was  never  allowed  to  attend  school 
but  twelve  months  in  his  whole  life.  He  gained 
his  education  mainly  as  he  lay  upon  the  floor 
before  an  open  fire  piled  with  pine  knots  reading 
such  books  as  he  could  command.  He  was  one 
of  the  homeliest  men  who  ever  walked  and  he 
knew  little  about  the  conventions  of  "society." 
He  was  never  outside  of  the  United  States.  But 
he,  too,  became  genuinely  great. 

These  men  were  esteemed  because  they  lived 
and  died  to  serve.  However  men  might  agree  or 
disagree  with  some  of  the  policies  of  Gladstone, 
they  came  to  feel  that  here  was  a  man  bent  upon 
laying  his  splendid  abilities  upon  the  altar  of  ser- 
vice in  the  British  Empire.  And  Abraham  Lincoln 
lived  in  the  spirit  of  that  Book  which  John  Hay, 
his  secretary,  tells  us  lay  always  on  his  desk,  and 

19 


Yale  Talks 

in  which  he  was  accustomed  to  read  every  day. 
The  Book  says,  "Whosoever  saveth  his  life  shall 
lose  it,  but  whosoever  loseth  his  life  for  My  sake 
shall  find  it."  Lincoln  found  himself,  he  found  his 
place  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  and  he 
found  his  niche  in  the  temple  of  fame  because  he 
lived  and  died  to  serve. 

It  was  so.  in  the  life  of  the  Perfect  Man.  He 
took  these  broken  lights  of  human  greatness  and 
set  them  in  their  true  perspective.  He  also  suf- 
fered, but  not  as  unwilling  victim — He  suffered 
as  one  who  freely  sacrificed  Himself  for  others. 
He,  too,  was  a  fighter,  but  never  with  the  carnal 
weapons  which  destroy  men's  lives.  He  fought 
with  those  spiritual  weapons,  instruction,  persua- 
sion, moral  appeal,  the  power  of  right  example, 
which  are  mighty  through  God  to  the  pulling  down 
of  the  strongholds  of  evil.  He  was  rich  in  per- 
sonal endowment  and  in  high  privilege,  yet  for 
our  sakes  He  became  poor  that  by  His  poverty 
He  might  make  many  rich.  He  was  a  thinker — 
He  could  speak  as  never  man  spake,  and  say 
without  fear  of  contradiction,  "I  am  the  Truth." 
But  underneath  all  else  He  was  a  servant.  He 
translated  the  language  of  religion  into  terms  of 
life  as  "the  Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among 
us  full  of  grace  and  truth."  He  became  the  Eternal 
Servant  of  that  larger  good  which  waits  upon  the 
spirit  of  unselfish  devotion. 

Let  me  read  you  a  single  leaf  from  the  book  of 

20 


I — True  Definition  of  a  Man 

experience!  It  is  not  a  newspaper  story — it 
occurred  in  my  own  parish  while  I  was  a  pastor 
in  California.  There  was  a  woman,  a  wife  and 
a  mother,  who  had  undergone  a  capital  surgical 
operation.  She  did  not  rally  afterward.  The  loss 
of  blood  and  the  nervous  shock  brought  her  to 
the  verge  of  death.  The  surgeons  after  a  hasty 
consultation  told  her  husband  that  unless  some- 
thins:  radical  was  done  at  once  her  life  could  not 
be  saved;  that  indeed  the  only  hope  lay  m  the 
transfusion  of  blood  from  some  healthy,  vigorous 
body. 

She  had  three  sons,  great,  strapping  fellows  in 
the  heyday  of  their  youth.  When  the  facts  were 
made  known  to  them,  they  offered  themselves  at 
once.  The  surgeon  took  them  apart  in  the  ad- 
joining room  and  had  them  strip  that  he  might 
hastily  decide  which  one  would  best  serve.  If 
any  one  of  them  had  allowed  his  blood  to  be 
tainted  by  some  wretched  vice,  if  he  had  depleted 
his  vitality  by  some  miserable  indulgence,  he 
would  have  been  cut  off  in  that  high  hour  from 
the  chance  of  serving  the  mother  in  her  time  of 
peril.  The  surgeon  ran  them  over  and  found 
every  one  of  them  sound,  clean,  abundantly  alive. 
They  were  all  fit — any  one  of  them  would  do. 
One  of  them  was  chosen  and  the  artery  of  strength 
was  opened  and  cormected  with  the  veins  of 
weakness.  Then  the  heart  of  that  young  man, 
clean  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  pumped  out  of 

21 


Yale  Talks 

its  own  store  of  life  a  fresh  stock  of  vitality  into 
that  other  life  which  trembled  on  the  brink.  The 
mother's  life  was  saved  and  restored.  She  is 
alive  today,  rejoicing  in  the  companionship  of 
those  three  fine  sons. 

How  splendid  that  they  were  in  shape  to  do  it! 
How  fine  that  in  the  years  past  they  had  so  lived 
that  when  the  call  came  not  one  of  them  needed 
to  flinch.  All  unwittingly  for  her  sake  they  had 
lived  the  life.  It  is  the  strongest  incentive  to 
righteousness,  it  is  the  strongest  deterrent  from 
evil  that  I  know — the  thought  of  serving  some 
other  life  in  a  time  of  emergency  which  may  be 
physical  or  mental  or  moral.  For  her  sake,  for 
his  sake,  "for  their  sakes,  I  sanctify  myself"  and 
live  the  life. 

Give  me  your  answer  then — How  would  you 
define  a  man?  What  do  you  propose  to  show  to 
the  world  thirty  years  from  now  and  say  to  it, 
"This  is  my  conception  of  what  it  means  to  be  a 
man."  If  you  show  it  a  victim  whining  because 
life  has  been  hard  and  the  luck  has  been  against 
you,  you  will  be  ashamed  of  yourself  every  time 
you  look  in  the  glass.  If  you  show  it  a  fighter, 
beating  and  bruising  your  way,  injuring  others  in 
order  to  succeed,  all  of  your  friends  will  be 
ashamed  of  you.  If  you  show  it  nothing  but  a 
money-maker,  feathering  your  own  nest  to  make 
it  soft  and  warm,  you  will  deny  all  the  best  tradi- 
tions of  this  university.    If  you  show  it  merely  a 

22 


I — True  Definition  of  a  Man 

thinker,  who  does  not  carry  his  insights  over  into 
achievements  and  translate  his  knowledge  into 
power  for  service,  then  still  your  life  will  be 
barren.  But  if  you  will  say  to  yourself,  "Man  is  a 
servant,"  and  allow  that  thought  to  rule  your  life, 
then  you  will  count  one  in  that  sacramental  host 
which  is  destined  to  trample  evil  in  the  dust  and 
make  this  earth  at  last  as  fair  as  the  sky. 


23 


II 

The  Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 

HERE  is  a  short  story  about  a  young  man 
who  had  been  having  his  fling!  He  had 
come  into  a  large  fortune  early  in  life,  which  is 
always  a  perilous  experience.  Where  a  young 
fellow  earns  his  money  by  the  sweat  of  his  own 
brow  he  usually  learns  something  about  the  value 
of  money.  Where  he  earns  his  pleasure  by  hard 
work  first,  he  knows  something  about  the  real 
meaning  of  pleasure.  But  where  all  this  is  thrust 
into  his  hand  by  a  piece  of  generosity  which  he 
calls  "good  fortune"  and  God  calls  "misfortune" 
oftentimes,  he  is  liable  to  make  a  mess  of  it. 

This  young  fellow  had  also  been  living  abroad, 
which  is  another  perilous  experience.  He  had 
gathered  all  together  and  had  taken  his  journey 
into  a  far  country.  The  young  man  in  Paris  or 
Vienna  with  a  big  bank  account  or  a  generous 
letter  of  credit  is  not  nearly  so  well  placed  as  he 
would  be  if  he  were  earning  his  own  living  plowing 
corn  in  South  Dakota  or  working  in  a  factory  in 
Paterson,  New  Jersey. 

The  odds  were  against  him — it  would  have 
taken  a  strong  moral  nature  to  have  faced  that 

24 


II — Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 

combination  of  circumstances  successfully,  and 
this  young  fellow  had  not  the  necessary  stuff  in 
him  to  do  it.  He  fell  down.  He  wasted  his  sub- 
stance in  riotous  living.  He  made  friends  with 
men  who  were  bad  and  with  women  who  were 
worse.  He  went  the  pace  and  it  was  rapid.  He 
thought  he  was  having  the  time  of  his  life — in  his 
poor  silly  little  head  that  was  all  he  knew.  But 
he  soon  came  to  the  end  of  his  time  such  as  it 
was^he  bumped  his  way  down  the  cellar  stairs 
until  he  found  himself  at  the  bottom.  "He  had 
spent  all  and  he  began  to  be  in  want."  He  took 
out  his  purse  and  there  was  nothing  in  it — not 
a  sou.  And  just  there  "he  came  to  himself."  He 
began  for  the  first  time  to  get  his  bearings.  He 
saw  the  value  of  an  empty  purse. 

What  help  did  this  young  man  get  out  of  his 
pocketbook  when  it  was  as  flat  as  his  own  feel- 
ings? In  the  first  place,  he  was  compelled  to  cut 
out  a  lot  of  evil  indulgences.  It  costs  money  to 
be  downright  wicked.  No  man  can  travel  the 
primrose  path  unless  he  has  the  price.  He  may 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  getting  drunk,  but  if  he 
is  entirely  out  of  money  he  will  have  to  live 
soberly  for  a  while.  He  may  have  been  indulging 
in  the  excitement  of  gambling,  but  with  an  empty 
purse  he  will  have  to  call  a  halt  on  that  form  of 
vice.  He  may  have  been  making  merry  with 
harlots  as  this  fellow  had  been  doing,  but  without 
money  he  cannot  go  on — their  smiles  have  to  be 

25 


Yale  Talks 

paid  for  in  cash.  The  way  of  the  transgressor  is 
expensive  as  well  as  hard — and  it  grows  harder 
and  more  expensive  the  longer  a  man  travels  it. 
This  is  God's  own  good  way  of  reminding  the 
transgressor  that  he  is  off  the  track. 

This  young  man  had  to  stop  because  his  money 
was  gone — he  could  not  pay  for  any  more  dissi- 
pation. It  is  an  honor  to  a  man  when  he  can  walk 
the  streets  of  the  wickedest  city  on  earth  with  a 
full  purse  and  turn  his  back  on  all  the  allurements 
to  wrongdoing.  He  could,  but  he  will  not,  because 
he  is  a  man  of  principle.  If,  however,  a  man  has 
not  reached  that  level  of  moral  development  he 
had  better  have  his  supplies  cut  off  for  a  season. 
If  he  is  unable  to  carry  a  full  purse  and  run 
straight,  let  him  carry  an  empty  one  for  a  time. 
It  was  a  distinct  advantage  to  this  young  man  to 
be  cut  off  from  further  indulgence  by  his  lack  of 
means.  "He  had  spent  all  and  began  to  be  in 
want" — and  at  the  same  time  he  began  to  be  a 
man. 

In  the  second  place,  his  empty  purse  compelled 
him  to  go  to  work.  He  had  to  do  it  to  put  bread 
in  his  mouth.  He  was  "perishing  with  hunger  and 
no  man  gave  to  him."  He,  therefore,  stood  out  in 
the  open  and  said  to  the  world,  "Make  me  a  hired 
servant.  From  this  hour  let  me  pull  my  own 
weight  in  the  boat  and  earn  my  way  man-fashion." 

The  sting  of  want — it  is  the  only  thing  that  is 
sharp  enough  to  transform  many  an  idler  into  a 

26 


II — Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 

worker  1  It  takes  the  hard  slap  of  necessity  to 
change  the  spender  into  a  producer.  You  meet 
droves  of  people  who  have  fallen  into  the  easy, 
disgraceful  habit  of  eating  their  bread  by  the 
sweat  of  other  men's  brows.  They  are  parasites 
on  the  social  body,  feeding  on  the  vitality  of 
others  without  producing  anything  of  their  own. 
They  are  like  those  fat,  lazy,  green  worms,  which 
crawl  around  on  the  trees  in  the  spring  filling 
themselves  with  food  which  they  did  nothing  to 
produce.  They  have  not  energy  enough  to  change 
the  green  leaves  into  any  decent  sort  of  flesh 
color.  They  simply  lay  their  food  around  their 
bodies  in  soft,  green  wads — you  can  look  at  them 
and  tell  what  they  ate  last. 

Heaven  be  praised  for  hard  work!  Heaven  be 
praised  for  the  necessity  which  makes  it  for  most 
of  us  not  an  elective  but  a  required  course!  We 
might  not  take  it  otherwise — it  is  so  easy  to  look 
for  snap  courses  in  the  world.  It  is  the  making 
of  a  man;  it  furnishes  the  necessary  discipline  to 
transform  human  pulp  into  manhood  with  some 
genuine  mental  and  moral  fibre  in  it. 

Let  every  soul  offer  that  same  prayer — "Make 
me  the  hired  servant  of  my  own  need  and  of  the 
common  good."  Wherever  men  and  women  are 
allowed  to  go  on  indefinitely,  finding  the  way 
greased  for  them  by  lavish  expenditure  and  gener- 
ous tips,  with  no  chance  to  come  into  contact  with 
the  rough  side  of  the  board,  they  are  liable  to 

27 


Yale  Talks 

bring  up  in  perdition.  "Endure  hardness  as  a 
good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ,"  Paul  said  once  to 
a  young  man  he  had  in  tow.  "Study  to  show  thy- 
self a  workman  that  need  not  be  ashamed."  It 
is  in  that  direction  that  honor  lies. 

It  would  be  a  great  gain  if  every  young  man 
had  to  face  the  world  with  his  coat  off;  if  he  were 
compelled  to  lay  hold  on  some  difficult  task  with 
both  hands;  if  he  were  made  to  lift  on  some  heavy 
load  until  the  sweat  came;  if  he  were  set  to  think 
hard  upon  some  problem  until  he  felt  the  tug  of 
it  on  his  own  brain.  It  is  by  that  process  that 
muscle  and  gray  matter  and  character  are  de- 
veloped. 

It  is  by  meeting  some  situation  which  offers  a 
challenge  to  the  best  powers  a  man  has  and  meet- 
ing it  without  flinching  that  he  adds  cubits  to  his 
stature.  What  under  Heaven  is  life  for  but  just 
that!  And  I  am  afraid  that  hundreds  of  us  might 
not  do  it  unless  we  had  to.  It  is  the  empty  purse, 
the  sting  of  want,  the  thrust  of  necessity  which 
drives  many  a  man  out  and  bids  him  strive. 

Hear  this  word  of  Edison,  the  great  worker  as 
well  as  the  great  inventor  of  our  day!  "Genius," 
he  says,  "may  be  two  per  cent  inspiration,  but  it  is 
ninety-eight  per  cent  perspiration,"  One  of  his 
assistants  told  me  that  Edison  worked  for  ten 
years  to  invent  his  storage  battery,  which  would 
harness  the  forces  of  the  lightning  to  the  homely 
tasks  of  earth;  and  that  during  that  period  he  was 

28 


II — Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 
always  in  his  laboratory  at  seven-thirty  every 
morning.  He  had  his  lunch  sent  to  him  in  the 
shop.  He  went  home  to  dinner,  but  he  usually 
came  back  in  the  evening  to  have  another  try  at 
it  in  the  quiet  of  the  night. 

He  was  there  working,  often  until  midnight, 
while  thousands  of  empty-headed  pleasure  seekers 
of  whom  the  world  will  never  hear  were  dancing 
up  and  down  the  great  White  Ways  of  earth  with 
more  dollars  than  sense.  He  made  hundreds  of 
experiments  during  those  years.  He  built  models 
by  the  score  and  then  discarded  them.  But 
through  repeated  failure  he  moved  ahead  to  a 
splendid  success.  He  invented  his  storage  battery 
and  the  whole  world  is  richer  for  what  he  did. 
And  he  tells  us  that  his  highest  joy  in  life  has 
been  found  in  matching  his  strength  and  skill 
against  baffling  problems  and  seeing  them  finally 
win  out. 

In  these  recent  years  we  have  been  putting  rub- 
ber tires  on  pretty  much  everything  and  it  has 
not  always  been  an  unmixed  advantage.  We  need 
some  of  the  jolts.  It  is  possible  to  make  life  so 
easy  and  comfortable  as  to  fail  of  the  best  results. 
With  high-priced  kindergartens  at  one  end  of  the 
educational  system  making  the  business  of  learn- 
ing a  sweet  little  game  and  with  certain  colleges 
at  the  other  end  of  the  system  offering  unlimited 
electives  and  no  very  searching  requirements, 
there  are  young  people  who  may  get  it  into  their 

29 


Yale  Talks 

heads  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  "painless  edu- 
cation." Painless  education  to  match  the  "pain- 
less dentistry"  we  sometimes  see  advertised, 
chiefly  by  quacks ! 

There  is  no  such  thing — it  cannot  be  done.  You 
cannot  be  carried  to  the  skies  of  mental  and  moral 
efficiency  on  flowery  beds  of  ease,  it  matters  not 
how  much  money  you  are  prepared  to  pay  for  the 
privilege.  There  are  no  parlor  cars  on  the  trains 
which  run  that  way.  Somewhere  along  the  road, 
all  along  the  road,  I  would  say,  there  must  be  hard, 
serious,  manly  study.  The  only  men  who  arrive 
are  the  men  who  take  the  middle  of  the  road  with 
all  the  dust  and  discomfort  that  may  involve  and 
put  it  through.  They  work  out  their  own  salva- 
tion. And  when  they  get  it  worked  out  it  is 
salvation. 

In  the  county  where  my  father  lived  for  fifty 
years  there  was  a  young  man  about  my  own  age, 
who  was  born  to  wealth.  He  had  a  home  filled 
with  comforts  and  luxuries.  His  father  generously 
gave  him  a  good  education,  the  advantages  of 
travel  and  all  the  other  good  things  which  money 
could  buy.  In  that  case  the  result  was  that  when 
the  young  man  was  forty  years  old  he  had  failed 
in  his  chosen  profession,  he  had  added  nothing 
whatever  to  the  moral  forces  of  the  community 
and  he  was  a  very  indifferent  sort  of  citizen.  He 
was  simply  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  pounds 
of  well-dressed  meat.    He  was  bewailing  the  poor 

30 


II — Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 
use  he  had  made  of  his  life  to  a  friend  one  day. 
He  remarked,  "The  best  thing  my  father  could 
have  done  for  me  when  I  was  twenty  years  old 
would  have  been  to  have  given  me  a  half  a  dollar 
and  kicked  me  out  into  the  street."  "George," 
the  friend  replied,  "why  did  you  not  take  a  half  a 
dollar  and  kick  yourself  out?"  He  had  not  the 
strength  of  mind  to  do  it.  He  had  genuine  ability 
and  a  great  deal  of  personal  charm,  and  I  have 
the  feeling  that  an  empty  purse  might  have  been 
the  making  of  him. 

Who  was  it  who  said  this,  "My  Father  worketh 
even  until  now  and  I  work"?  His  highest  concep- 
tion of  God  was  of  a  Being  who  from  the  first 
hour  when  the  morning  stars  sang  together  down 
through  the  countless  ages,  had  been  engaged  in  a 
ceaseless,  tireless,  beneficent  putting  forth  of  His 
energy  in  work.  His  highest  conception  of  human 
life  was  embodied  in  the  action  of  a  Man  who  took 
upon  Himself  the  form  of  a  servant,  went  about 
doing  good  and  kept  it  up  until  He  could  say,  "I 
have  finished  the  work  Thou  gavest  me  to  do." 
The  Master  worked  voluntarily  because  He  was 
the  Perfect,  the  Typal,  the  Representative  Man, 
the  Son  of  Man.  But  however  it  comes,  whether 
from  choice  or  from  necessity,  from  a  high  resolve 
or  from  the  promptings  of  an  empty  purse,  honor 
that  impulse  which  sends  you  forth  to  your  own 
appointed  work. 

In  the  third  place,  the  young  man's  empty  purse 

31 


Yale  Talks 

enabled  him  to  see  the  difference  between  false 
friends  and  true.  While  he  was  rich  he  was  im- 
mensely popular.  He  had  friends  galore,  as  he 
thought.  He  was  "a  good  spender,"  as  the  foolish 
phrase  runs,  and  he  found  plenty  of  foolish 
friends,  male  and  female,  to  help  him  spend  his 
money.  He  was  courted  and  flattered  on  all  sides. 
Ht  thought  that  all  those  people  liked  him  when 
as  a  matter  of  fact  they  merely  liked  his  money. 

The  moment  his  money  was  gone  he  found  that 
all  those  false  friends  were  gone,  too.  "He  began 
to  be  in  want  and  no  man  gave  to  him" — that  was 
the  heartbreaking  part  of  it.  Among  all  those  fol- 
lowers who  had  been  drawn  about  him  by  his  reck- 
less spending  there  was  not  a  man  nor  a  woman 
who  cared  enough  for  him  to  give  him  a  meal. 
His  fat  purse  had  blinded  him  to  their  real  charac- 
ters, but  now  with  an  empty  purse  as  a  field  glass 
he  could  see  them  as  they  were,  and  he  saw  them 
vanishing  in  the  distance  as  rats  leave  a  sinking 
ship. 

It  is  good  for  us  to  get  down  to  hardpan  now 
and  then,  where  we  are  liked  or  disliked  not  for 
what  we  have,  but  for  what  we  are.  It  is  good 
for  us  to  meet  men  not  as  the  paid  servants  of 
our  pleasure  nor  as  tradesmen  eager  for  our  pat- 
ronage, but  simply  man  to  man.  No  man's  life 
consists  of  the  abundance  nor  of  the  scarcity  of 
the  things  he  possesses.  The  only  friends  worth 
having  are  those  who  take  us  not  for  what  we 


32 


II — Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 

own,  but  for  what  we  are.  And  those  real  friends 
are  in  no  wise  affected  by  the  ups  or  downs  in  our 
bank  accounts.  But  when  a  man's  purse  is  empty 
he  knows  "who's  who"  without  looking  in  a  big 
red  book.  He  can  distinguish  instantly  between 
the  false  friends  and  the  true. 

In  one  of  Martin  Maartens'  stories  he  speaks  of 
the  social  habits  in  a  certain  city  which  had  be- 
come hopelessly  commercialized.  If  a  man  was 
poor  they  shouted  his  name  at  him  in  harsh  tones 
as  if  they  had  been  announcing  the  name  of  some 
small  station  on  the  railroad.  If  a  man  was  worth 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars  they  addressed  him  in 
tones  of  quiet  respect.  If  he  was  worth  two  hun- 
dred thousand  they  gave  him  exactly  twice  as 
much  deference.  If  he  had  a  million  they  lowered 
their  voices  almost  to  a  whisper  and  folded  their 
hands  in  his  presence  as  they  did  when  they  were 
in  church.  They  did  not  reverence  the  man,  but 
they  reverenced  his  money.  "They  worshipped 
money,"  the  author  says,  "because  they  felt  that 
a  man  who  does  not  worship  money  is  a  socialist, 
and  a  socialist  is  an  atheist,  and  an  atheist  is  a 
man  with  no  religion."  Therefore,  because  they 
were  religious  "after  their  kind"  they  worshiped 
money  with  a  deep  and  holy  reverence.  In  that 
city  no  one  knew  who  his  real  friends  were  unless 
his  purse  was  empty. 

There  is  a  Friend  that  sticketh  closer  than  a 
brother,  whose  feeling  for  us  is  in  no  wise  affected 

33 


Yale  Talks 

by  our  rating  in  Bradstreet.  He  was  equally  at 
home  with  Zaccheus,  the  richest  man  in  Jericho, 
and  with  that  blind  beggar,  who  was  the  poorest 
man  in  Jerusalem.  And  He  liked  to  construe  His 
own  relationships  in  terms  of  personal  friendship. 
"I  have  called  you  friends,"  He  said  one  day  to  a 
group  of  eager,  active,  red-blooded,  young  men. 
"I  have  called  you  friends" — and  friends  they 
were,  even  though  their  means  were  small.  Many 
a  man  flattered  and  pampered  in  the  days  of  his 
prosperity  never  learns  what  a  friend  Jesus  Christ 
can  be  until  the  hour  strikes  when  all  his  pros- 
perity vanishes.  In  that  hour,  not  knowing  where 
else  to  look,  he  looks  up,  and  sees  a  Friend.  His 
purse  is  empty,  but  his  heart  is  full  because  he 
has  entered  into  that  personal  fellowship  with  an 
Eternal  Friend,  which  is  ennobling  beyond  any 
other  influence  which  enters  the  human  soul.  Re- 
joice in  the  day  of  adversity  if  it  enables  you  to 
see  the  difference  between  false  friends  and  true. 
In  the  fourth  place,  the  young  man's  empty 
purse  gave  him  a  new  standard  of  values.  He 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  purchasing  his  satisfac- 
tions with  cash.  He  purchased  some  of  them  at 
the  bar  and  some  of  them,  the  story  says,  in  the 
brothel.  He  purchased  some  of  them  in  worthier 
places,  but  they  all  came  to  him  because  he  had 
the  price.  He  had  fallen  into  a  way  of  thinking 
that  there  was  nothing  under  Heaven  or  in  Heaven 
which  money  would  not  buy.    He  said  to  himself, 

34 


II — Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 

"I  am  rich  and  increased  with  goods  and  have 
need  of  nothing."  Then  God  stripped  him  of  all 
he  had  and  set  him  out  in  the  open,  a  poor,  naked, 
shivering  soul  with  nothing  but  an  empty  purse. 

In  that  very  hour  "he  came  to  himself."  He 
saw  himself  as  he  was  in  the  clear  daylight  of 
reahty  rather  than  in  the  night-light  of  thoughtless 
dissipation.  He  said,  "I  have  sinned — but  I  will 
make  an  about  face.  I  have  been  wasting  my  sub- 
stance as  a  useless  spender,  now  I  will  become  a 
producer,  the  hired  servant  of  the  common  good. 
I  have  been  throwing  away  my  chance  in  this  far 
country.  Now  I  will  go  back  where  I  belong.  I 
have  cut  myself  off  from  those  relationships  which 
are  wholesome  and  rewarding.  Now  I  will  arise 
and  go  to  my  father."  And  he  went,  step  by  step, 
a  long,  tedious  journey  of  moral  renewal,  but 
every  step  in  the  right  direction.  He  went  poor 
in  purse,  but  rich  in  high  resolve  and  in  a  new 
appreciation  of  those  values  which  are  supreme. 

You  may,  if  you  choose,  allow  your  empty  purse 
to  make  you  sour — you  can  stand  off  looking  with 
envy  upon  those  who  possess  what  you  would  like 
to  possess  and  cannot.  You  may,  if  you  choose, 
allow  your  empty  purse  to  make  you  hard  and 
defiant — you  fling  out  your  resentment  at  a  world 
which  has  dealt  you  such  a  sorry  hand  with  no 
kings  and  queens  in  it.  You  may,  if  you  choose, 
allow  your  empty  purse  to  become  so  heavy  with 
the  sense  of  disappointment  which  takes  the  place 

35 


Yale  Talks 

of  bank  notes  as  to  send  you  through  life  broken 
and  depressed.  All  these  lines  of  action  are  open 
to  you,  and  mistaken  men  travel  them  all.  But, 
if  you  choose,  you  may  allow  that  bit  of  adversity 
to  furnish  you  the  chance  to  show  yourself  every 
inch  a  man,  honored  and  valued  for  your  personal 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart.  In  that  event  your 
empty  purse  will  give  you  a  new  and  better  stan- 
dard of  values. 

There  was  a  young  man  once  who  came  to 
Christ  with  great  possessions.  He  was  a  clean- 
living,  serious-minded  fellow,  who  had  kept  all  the 
commandments  from  his  youth  up.  The  Master 
looked  him  over  and  took  his  measure.  Then  He 
said  to  him  in  effect  something  like  this,  "There 
are  men  who  have  the  necessary  moral  fibre  to  be 
masters  of  their  possessions.  There  are  rich  men 
who  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  administering 
their  wealth  in  harmony  with  the  great  Christian 
ideals.  It  is  not  an  easy  task — it  is  like  putting 
a  camel  through  the  eye  of  a  needle — but  by  the 
grace  of  God  it  can  be  done."  And  where  a  rich 
man  is  thoroughly  Christian  in  all  his  acts  and 
attitudes  he  is  a  kind  of  masterpiece  in  God's 
gallery  of  good  men.  "But  you,"  Jesus  said  to 
the  young  ruler,  "have  not  it  in  you  to  do  that 
great  thing.  Your  only  safety  lies  in  parting  with 
your  wealth  and  in  following  Me.  You  need  to 
meet  your  fellow  men  and  your  Maker  with  an 
empty  purse  because  your  means  have  blinded  you 

36 


II — Value  of  an  Empty  Purse 

thus  far  to  the  deeper  things  of  life."  The  young 
man  would  not  meet  that  hard  test — it  was  a  chal- 
lenge to  the  best  there  was  in  him,  but  he  refused. 
He  turned  away  sorrowful  for  he  loved  money 
more  than  he  loved  manhood. 

How  fine,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the  moral 
results  of  self-sacrifice  and  discipline!  It  is  good 
for  everyone  to  learn  how  to  subordinate  his  own 
personal  comfort  and  pleasure  to  some  larger 
interest.  In  that  school  the  men  who  have  the 
future  in  their  hands  are  now  being  trained.  The 
Head  Master  of  Eton,  the  famous  English  boys' 
school,  was  at  one  time  a  stern,  old  chap  whose 
name  was  Keats.  One  winter  morning  he  met  a 
small  boy  who  was  crying.  "What's  the  matter 
with  you?"  the  Master  called  out,  in  his  gruff  way. 
"I'm  cold,"  the  boy  whimpered.  "Cold,  you  must 
not  complain  of  the  cold.    This  is  no  girls'  school." 

It  was  a  harsh  reply,  but  the  sniveling  boy  had 
a  spark  of  manhood  in  him  which  caught  fire.  He 
stopped  crying  and  he  never  forgot  that  stern 
command.  Fifteen  years  later  he  was  riding  at 
the  head  of  his  own  regiment  of  Dragoons  in 
India.  When  the  order  came  to  charge  on  the 
entrenched  Sihks  he  gathered  up  his  bridle  rein, 
swung  himself  into  the  saddle  and  called  out  to  a 
brother  officer  who  had  also  studied  at  Eton, 
"Well,  as  old  Keats  used  to  say,  'This  is  no  girls' 
school!'  but  here  goes!"  Then  he  rode  on,  to  his 
death,  as  the  event  proved,  but  the  charge  brought 

37 


Yale  Talks 

victory  that  day  to  the  English  Army  and  the  ex- 
tension of  the  British  Empire  there  beneath  the 
Southern  Cross.  How  splendid  are  the  results  of 
discipline,  bravely  met  and  nobly  born,  in  the 
making  of  that  manhood  which  is  the  image  of 
God  on  earth. 


38 


Ill 

The  Lure  of  Goodness 

THERE  is  a  feeling  in  certain  quarters  that 
being  good  is  dull  work.  There  are  men 
who  talk  as  if  wickedness  would  always  be  found 
interesting  and  exciting,  where  righteousness 
would  be  tame  and  spiritless.  When  young  men 
speak  of  going  off  to  some  great  city  to  "see  life" 
they  usually  have  in  mind  something  immoral. 
They  think  that  that  sort  of  thing  is  "life"  and 
that  the  decencies  are  more  or  less  dead. 

The  newspapers  have  helped  to  create  that 
notion.  They  give  an  inordinate  amount  of  space 
to  the  vices  and  crimes  of  men — it  is  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  real  significance  of  such  action. 
A  man  may  go  straight  along  about  his  business 
for  fifty  years  without  ever  causing  anybody  to 
look  around.  But  if  he  does  something  out- 
rageously wicked  he  will  be  in  all  the  papers  next 
morning  with  headlines  and  pictures.  The  news- 
papers insist  that  this  is  "news."  They  think  that 
everybody  will  want  to  read  about  it.  They  have 
the  same  curious  notion  that  wickedness  is  inter- 
esting while  goodness  is  dull. 

Now  my  own  feeling  is  that  all  those  people  are 

39 


Yale  Talks 

just  as  crazy  as  they  would  be  if  they  went  around 
insisting  that  two  and  two  make  five  or  fifty. 
They  have  not  learned  to  add  or  to  subtract. 
They  cannot  even  see  the  figures  on  the  board  and 
tell  what  they  mean.  The  most  fascinating  pur- 
suit in  the  world  is  that  of  being  good.  The  finest 
form  of  adventure  upon  which  any  man  can  enter 
is  the  quest  for  goodness  and  for  God  in  the  depths 
of  his  own  soul.  It  has  not  become  common 
enough  to  rob  it  of  a  certain  air  of  romance.  If 
you  wish  to  find  the  zest  and  relish  of  life,  do  that. 
"The  lure  of  goodness"  is  my  theme  and  if  I  could 
lift  it  up  so  that  you  would  see  it  as  it  is  it  would 
draw  you  to  it. 

Here  in  the  New  Testament  was  One  who  made 
goodness  interesting.  He  began  His  life  in  a  pic- 
turesque sort  of  way.  He  was  born  in  the  manger 
of  a  stable,  which  was  an  odd  place  to  be  born. 
He  grew  up  in  a  carpenter's  home  and  in  a  carpen- 
ter shop.  He  never  saw  the  inside  of  a  college, 
yet  somehow  He  learned  to  think  straight  and  to 
speak  as  never  man  spake.  He  had  the  courage 
of  his  convictions  because  He  knew  what  He  was 
talking  about.  When  He  was  thirty  years  old 
He  stood  up  boldly  and  said  to  the  men  of  His 
day,  "I  am  the  Way,  walk  in  it;  and  the  Truth, 
believe  it;  and  the  Life,  live  it,  and  it  will  make 
you  free."  Some  of  the  men  who  heard  Him  tried 
it,  and  they  found  that  it  was  so. 

He  went  about  turning  the  various  maxims  of 

40 


Ill — Lure  of  Goodness 

human  conduct  end  for  end.  "It  hath  been  said 
by  them  of  old  time,  but  I  say  unto  you" — some- 
thing entirely  different.  And  when  He  did  that 
everyone  saw  that  those  principles  of  righteous- 
ness fitted  into  the  needs  of  everyday  life  as  they 
never  had  before.  He  went  about  turning  things 
upside  down,  and  when  He  did  that  people  saw 
that  for  the  first  time  things  were  right  side  up. 
He  was  free,  brave,  original,  in  His  method  of 
being  good  and  when  men  watched  Him  live  they 
went  away  saying,  "We  never  saw  it  on  this 
fashion." 

He  taught  not  as  the  scribes  who  had  learned 
their  lesson  out  of  a  book  but  as  one  having  the 
authority  of  first-hand  knowledge  of  spiritual 
things.  He  clothed  His  message  in  the  ordinary 
words  of  everyday  life,  "and  the  common  people 
heard  Him  gladly."  He  said  that  the  new  prin- 
ciple of  life  He  had  come  to  introduce  into  the 
world  was  like  "salt,"  it  was  like  "yeast,"  it  was 
like  "mustard  seed."  He  compared  it  to  all  man- 
ner of  homely  things  which  had  some  punch  in 
them.  He  said  in  a  blunt  way,  "No  man  can  serve 
two  masters."  Men  cannot  serve  God  and  money 
at  the  same  time  without  getting  things  mixed. 
He  said  obedience  to  the  law  of  God  was  like 
building  one's  house  on  solid  rock,  and  disobe- 
dience was  like  building  it  on  the  sand.  He  said 
that  prayer  is  as  simple  and  natural  as  the  act 
of  a  child  asking  his  father  for  bread  or  fish  or  an 

41 


Yale  Talks 

egg.  And  because  those  fathers  in  Palestine, 
faulty  though  they  were,  knew  how  to  give  good 
gifts  to  their  children,  they  felt  the  force  of  the 
claim  He  made  on  behalf  of  prayer  to  the 
Heavenly  Father.  When  the  common  people 
heard  Him  talking  about  goodness  after  that  man- 
ner they  followed  Him  about  in  droves  as  if  He 
had  been  a  circus  procession  instead  of  a  teacher 
of  religion.  They  had  never  heard  it  on  that 
fashion  before  and  they  could  not  seem  to  get 
enough  of  it. 

He  went  habitually  among  the  people  who 
needed  Him  most.  He  chose  publicans  and  sin- 
ners for  His  intimates  and  made  saints  of  them. 
He  picked  up  worthless  beggars  and  women  of 
the  street  and  by  the  sheer  contagion  of  His  own 
life  made  new  people  of  them.  "I  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous" — He  said  this  with  a  smile  for 
He  knew  that  those  self-satisfied  prigs  who  were 
sneering  at  Him  were  anything  but  righteous — "I 
came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  re- 
pentance." He  laid  His  strong,  clean  hands  on 
lepers  to  their  amazement  for  they  had  not  felt 
the  touch  of  healthy  flesh  for  years;  and  when 
He  took  His  hands  away  the  lepers  were  cleansed. 
He  told  a  lame  man  to  stand  up  and  walk  and 
there  was  such  a  note  of  authority  in  His  voice 
that  the  lame  man  tried  and  found  to  his  joy  that 
he  could.  He  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind  and 
unstopped  the  ears  of  the  deaf,  causing  men  to 

42 


Ill — Lure  of  Goodness 

see  and  to  hear  what  they  had  never  seen  nor 
heard  before.  He  loved  men,  bad  men  as  often 
as  not,  because  they  needed  it  rather  than  because 
they  deserved  it.  When  He  died  He  was  not  lying 
in  a  comfortable  bed,  he  was  hanging  on  a  Cross. 
He  was  hanging  there  not  bewailing  His  fate  nor 
denouncing  the  men  who  had  crucified  Him.  He 
was  praying  for  them  with  a  tenderness  which 
ought  to  have  melted  a  heart  of  stone — "Father, 
forgive  them;  for  they  know  not."  And  when  He 
went  out  of  this  world  He  was  carrying  a  penitent 
robber  in  His  arms — "into  Paradise,"  He  said. 

Now  all  that  is  interesting !  There  is  not  a  dull 
line  anywhere  in  the  life  of  the  Perfect,  the  Typal, 
the  Representative  Man,  the  Son  of  Man.  We 
print  and  circulate  more  copies  of  the  little  book 
containing  the  story  of  His  life  a  hundred  times 
over  than  of  any  other  volume  you  can  name.  It 
came  out  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  and  it  is 
still  a  best  seller.  We  date  our  calendars  from  the 
date  of  His  birth — 1919  we  say,  for  it  is  just 
that  long  since  He  was  born  in  the  manger  of  the 
stable.  We  call  the  fairest  portion  of  the  globe 
"Christendom" — His  part  of  it.  His  words  have 
become  household  words  in  more  homes  and  in 
more  hearts  than  those  of  any  other  one  who  ever 
walked  the  earth.  He  has  a  grip  on  the  thoughts, 
the  hopes  and  the  high  resolves  of  men  at  this 
hour  which  cannot  be  matched.    He  is  interesting. 

43 


Yale  Talks 

Lift  Him  up  anywhere  until  men  see  Him  as  He 
is  and  He  draws  them  to  Him. 

How  do  you  account  for  it?  What  is  the  secret 
of  the  interest  which  attaches  to  his  style  of  good- 
ness? I  can  think  of  several  elements  in  it  which 
are  suggestive. 

In  the  first  place  He  was  perfectly  natural.  He 
never  posed.  He  never  seemed  to  be  playing  a 
part.  He  was  not  being  good  to  be  seen  of  men. 
He  never  said  to  Himself,  "Now  this  is  what  would 
be  expected  of  a  man  in  my  position."  He  was 
what  He  was  without  ever  seeming  to  think  about 
how  it  might  look  to  others — He  was  not  con- 
cerned about  that. 

You  know  Bernard  Shaw  says  that  if  you  go  to 
a  symphony  concert  you  will  find  many  people 
who  are  there  not  because  they  like  classical  music 
but  because  they  know  they  ought  to  like  it  and 
that  it  is  the  proper  thing  to  be  seen  at  the  sym- 
phony, and  so  they  go.  In  like  manner,  when  you 
get  to  Heaven  you  may  find  people  there  who  are 
there  not  because  they  have  any  real  taste  or 
fitness  for  that  sort  of  thing  but  because  they  feel 
that  they  owe  it  to  their  social  position  to  be  in 
Heaven.  How  mighty  are  the  conventions  of 
society  and  how  dull  and  tiresome  they  make  thou- 
sands of  people  who  become  slaves  to  them!  " 
Those  people  might  be  interesting  if  they  would 
only  be  themselves. 

How  simple  and  natural  Jesus  was.    He  lived 

44 


Ill — Lure  of  Goodness 

not  as  the  scribes  but  as  one  whose  goodness  was 
vital.    His  life,  therefore,  was  with  power. 

He  began  his  public  ministry  not  in  the  syna- 
gogue nor  at  the  temple  but  at  a  wedding.  He 
wrought  His  first  mighty  work  there  because  the 
people  He  was  interested  in  were  at  the  wedding. 
When  He  turned  the  water  of  the  occasion  into 
wine  the  people  felt  that  the  best  joy  of  their  lives 
had  been  kept  until  that  hour. 

He  came  not  like  John  the  Baptist,  neither  eat- 
ing nor  drinking  in  an  ordinary  way  but  living 
apart  in  the  desert  on  locusts  and  wild  honey  in 
an  unnatural,  ascetic  fashion.  He  came  eating 
and  drinking  oftentimes  with  publicans  and  sin- 
ners. His  table  talk  changed  the  lives  of  hard- 
headed  business  men  like  Zaccheus  and  Matthew. 
He  was  just  as  much  at  home  with  poor  men  like 
that  beggar  in  Jerusalem  who  was  born  blind. 
While  He  was  with  them  it  never  occurred  to  them 
that  they  were  poor.  In  His  presence  all  hands 
felt  that  no  man's  life  consists  of  the  abundance 
of  the  things  that  he  can  buy.  Life  is  made  up 
of  certain  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  and  not  of 
the  things  which  men  store  up  in  barns  or  in 
banks. 

He  told  His  friends  that  being  good  was  being 
like  the  birds  and  the  flowers.  ''Consider  the 
ravens,"  He  said,  "they  neither  sow  nor  reap. 
They  have  neither  storehouse  nor  barn,  yet  God 
feeds  them."    The  ravens  were  not  made  to  sow 

45 


Yale  Talks 
and  reap.  They  do  the  things  they  were  made  to 
do.  They  are  true  to  the  law  of  their  being.  They 
function  according  to  their  own  natures.  They 
live  out  their  ravenhood  flying  to  and  fro,  keen 
of  eye  and  swift  of  wing,  seeking  their  meat  from 
God,  and  in  the  great  natural  order  which  enfolds 
them  they  are  fed. 

"Consider  the  lilies,"  He  said,  "they  neither  toil 
nor  spin,  yet  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  never 
so  well  dressed  as  one  of  these  wild  flowers."  The 
lilies  were  not  made  to  toil  and  spin.  They  do 
the  things  they  were  made  to  do.  They  are  true 
to  the  law  of  their  being.  They  function  accord- 
ing to  their  own  natures.  They  live  out  their  lily- 
hood  reaching  down  and  claiming  all  that  the  soil 
has  for  them,  looking  up  to  receive  all  that  the 
sun  and  the  rain  and  the  dew  have  for  them,  and 
so  they  are  clothed  with  beauty. 

"Do  that,"  Jesus  said.  Do  the  things  you  were 
made  to  do.  Be  true  to  the  law  of  your  being. 
Function  according  to  your  own  natures.  Live 
out  your  manhood  and  your  womanhood.  What- 
soever your  hands,  your  minds  and  your  hearts 
find  to  do,  do  it  well.  Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of 
God  and  righteousness — that  is  what  you  were 
made  to  do.  And  when  you  are  striving  for  self- 
realization  along  the  line  of  the  Divine  Purpose 
for  you,  intelligently  and  conscientiously,  you,  too, 
will  be  fed  and  clothed.  You  will  be  fed  indeed 
with  the  Bread  that  comes  down  from  above  and 

46 


Ill — Lure  of  Goodness 

clothed  with  that  righteousness  which  is  the  fine 
linen  of  the  saints.  The  Master  was  always  sim- 
ple and  natural  in  His  method  of  being  good.  And 
that  was  one  reason  why  men  found  Him  interest- 
ing. 

In  the  second  place,  His  goodness  was  abso- 
lutely spontaneous.  He  lived  at  a  time  when  the 
good  people  of  the  world  were  keen  on  rules  and 
regulations.  They  had  reduced  righteousness  to  a 
science,  as  they  believed,  and  it  took  a  well-posted 
man  to  remember  all  the  moves  in  the  game  as  the 
Pharisees  played  it.  There  were  thirty-three  dif- 
ferent ways  in  which  men  could  break  the  Sab- 
bath. There  were  fifty-seven  varieties  of  mint, 
anise  and  cummin,  which  had  to  be  carefully 
tithed.  They  had  bound  upon  the  consciences  of 
men  burdens  grievous  to  be  borne  by  their  insist- 
ence upon  endless  details  in  the  art  of  being  good. 
Religion  had  become  legalism;  righteousness  was 
an  affair  of  rules.  And  the  whole  system  had  be- 
come as  dull  as  a  page  torn  out  of  a  trigonometry. 

Jesus  set  Himself  against  that  whole  method. 
"Except  your  righteousness  exceeds  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  except  your 
goodness  becomes  more  interesting  and  vital  than 
that,  you  cannot  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 
A  good  tree  brings  forth  good  fruit  naturally, 
spontaneously,  inevitably.  It  cannot  otherwise. 
It  does  it  just  as  a  bird  sings.  Therefore,  make 
the  tree  good  and  let  the  fruit  come  as  it  will — 

47 


Yale  Talks 

the  fruit  will  be  all  right.  A  good  man  out  of  the 
good  treasure  of  his  heart  brings  forth  good  deeds. 
He  does  it  naturally,  spontaneously,  inevitably. 
Therefore,  make  the  heart  ris;ht  and  let  the  con- 
duct  come  as  it  will.  Love  God  with  an  honest 
heart,  and  love  your  neighbor  as  well  as  yourself, 
and  then  do  as  you  please.  With  that  sort  of 
heart  within,  vour  own  spontaneous  action  will  be 
right.  Love  works  no  ill  to  anybody;  therefore, 
love  is  the  fulfilment  of  all  law. 

Now  that  sort  of  goodness  is  interesting  and 
worth  while.  The  rule-keeping  sort  is  always  dull 
and  weak.  The  voung  man  who  is  alwavs  think- 
ing  when  he  should  put  his  right  foot  forward  and 
when  his  left  never  becomes  easv  and  graceful 
as  a  dancer — he  can  hardly  walk  across  the  room 
without  falling  over  the  flowers  in  the  carpet. 
The  young  woman  who  is  always  tr\'ing  to  remem- 
ber Rule  53  or  Rule  97  in  some  ''Guide  to  De- 
portment" or  "Book  of  Etiquette,"  never  becomes 
a  lady.  She  is  not  gaining  that  spirit  of  thought- 
ful, kindly  consideration  for  others  which  is  the 
essence  of  all  good  breeding.  The  people  whose 
eyes  are  forever  on  rules  of  conduct  graven  on 
tables  of  stone  rather  than  upon  the  temper  and 
disposition  of  the  heart  never  become  genuinely 
good.  The  ^Master  was  intent  upon  a  mode  of 
goodness  which  should  be  vital. 

WTien  we  read  the  story  of  the  Master's  life  it 
seems  as  if  He  went  about  thinking  up  new  ways 

48 


Ill — Lure  of  Goodness 

of  being  good.  He  was  always  striking  out  on 
lines  of  His  own.  If  we  had  not  gone  so  far 
toward  making  Him  a  stained-glass  window,  or  a 
cold  white  marble  statue,  or  a  narrative  in  a  book 
which  most  men  seldom  read — if  we  could  only 
see  Him  as  He  was,  flesh  and  blood,  warm,  real, 
alive,  our  hearts  would  leap  at  the  sight  of  His 
goodness,  as  did  the  hearts  of  those  men  in  Gali- 
lee. They  were  accustomed  to  the  cut-and-dried 
style  of  goodness,  but  when  they  saw  His  method 
they  cried  out,  "This  of  a  truth  is  that  prophet 
that  should  come."  They  saw  in  Him  what  the 
nations  had  been  waiting  for  during  all  those 
centuries.  He  was  simple  and  natural,  genuine 
and  spontaneous,  and  when  that  t\'pe  of  goodness 
is  lifted  up  in  any  land  it  draws  men  to  it. 

You  have  all  read  no  doubt  about  the  Bishop 
whose  name  was  "Welcome."  His  name  fitted 
him — it  grew  out  of  him  like  his  hair.  WHierever 
he  went  he  was  just  that,  he  was  welcome.  "WTien 
he  was  first  made  a  Bishop  he  found  that  the 
Bishop's  palace  had  in  it  sixty  splendid  rooms 
while  the  little  town  hospital  across  the  street  had 
only  six.  He  visited  the  hospital  first.  "How 
many  patients  have  you  here?"  he  said  to  the 
head  physician.  "Twentv-six."  "Your  beds  are 
crowded  and  your  rooms  are  poorly  ventilated." 
"Yes,  your  lordship,"  replied  the  doctor,  "but 
what  can  w^e  do — we  have  no  more  room."  "There 
is  some  mistake  here,"  said  the  Bishop;    "they 

49 


Yale  Talks 

have  gotten  these  houses  mixed  up.  It  is  per- 
fectly clear  to  me  that  you  have  my  house  and  I 
have  yours.  Restore  me  my  own — your  place  is 
across  the  street."  So  he  had  the  sick  people  all 
moved  over  into  the  Bishop's  palace  with  its  sixty 
rooms  and  he  lived  for  the  rest  of  his  days  in  the 
little  one-story  hospital.  That  interested  the 
people  of  the  Diocese — they  had  never  seen  it  on 
that  fashion  before. 

It  was  said  of  him  that  as  long  as  he  had  money 
in  his  pockets  he  visited  the  poor  people  of  his 
Diocese  that  he  might  help  them.  When  his 
money  was  all  gone  he  visited  the  rich  to  ask 
them  for  gifts  to  help  the  poor. 

He  announced  one  Sunday  that  the  following 
week  he  intended  to  go  up  into  the  mountains  to 
visit  some  poor  shepherds  who  were  keeping  their 
flocks  in  an  out-of-the-way  place.  The  mountains 
at  that  time  were  infested  with  brigands. 

The  Mayor  of  the  town  called  on  him  that 
afternoon  to  protest  against  his  going.  "You 
would  need  an  escort  of  soldiers,"  the  Mayor  said, 
"and  even  then  you  would  imperil  their  lives  as 
well  as  your  own." 

"For  that  reason,"  the  Bishop  said,  "I  shall 
go  without  an  escort." 

"Alone?" 

"Alone." 

"They  will  rob  you." 

"I  have  nothing." 

50 


Ill — Lure  of  Goodness 

"They  will  kill  you." 

"A  harmless  old  priest  passing  along  muttering 
his  prayers?    What  good  would  that  do  them?" 

"What  would  you  do  if  you  met  them?" 

"I  would  ask  them  for  alms  for  my  poor." 

The  Mayor  saw  that  he  could  not  do  anything 
with  such  a  man — he,  too,  had  never  seen  it  on 
that  fashion.  The  Bishop  set  out  the  next  morn- 
ing with  one  small  boy  who  had  offered  to  go 
along  to  show  him  the  way.  He  found  the  shep- 
herds and  spent  the  week  with  them,  telling  them 
about  the  goodness  of  God  and  administering  to 
them  the  Holy  Communion,  which  they  had  not 
received  for  years.  And  when  he  returned  he 
brought  with  him  a  large  treasure  of  gold,  silver 
and  precious  stones  which  had  been  sent  to  him 
there  in  the  mountains  with  this  message  pinned 
upon  it — "To  Bishop  Welcome  from  Cravatte." 

Cravatte  was  the  ringleader  of  the  brigands! 
And  when  the  Bishop  was  showing  his  treasure  to 
his  curate  he  said,  "To  those  who  are  satisfied  with 
little,  God  sends  much."  "God,"  the  curate  re- 
plied, "or  the  devil?"  The  Bishop  looked  at  him 
long  and  searchingly  and  answered,  "God." 

Now  that  is  interesting!  Bishop  Welcome  was 
like  his  Master.  His  life  was  the  light  of  men. 
Wherever  he  went  they  saw  their  way  about,  and 
in  that  light  they  walked  toward  Heaven.  His 
goodness  was  not  the  rule-keeping  sort.  It  was 
simple  and  natural,  genuine  and  spontaneous.    It 

51 


Yale  Talks 

was  the  real  thing,  and  when  men  saw  it  they 
glorified  God. 

What  a  tragedy  it  is  where  goodness  is  carica- 
tured! Where  it  is  made  to  seem  dull  and  mean! 
Where  men  are  honest  because  honesty  is  the  best 
policy  rather  than  from  any  real  love  of  integrity! 
Where  men  are  clean  because  they  dread  the  con- 
sequences of  doing  what  they  would  really  like  to 
do!  Where  they  tell  the  truth  because  they  are 
afraid  of  being  found  out  as  liars!  Where  they 
do  an  occasional  good  deed  because  it  is  pleasant 
to  receive  the  applause  of  men !  Where  men  cari- 
cature goodness  in  that  way  they  become  the 
enemies  of  the  race.  They  are  guilty  of  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors  against  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  They  ought  to  be  shut  up  somewhere  until 
they  learn  better. 

And  those  people  whose  goodness  is  thin, 
meagre  and  commonplace  with  never  a  splendid 
outburst  of  real  generosity  in  it,  with  none  of  that 
moral  venture  which  leads  men  to  stake  every- 
thing on  loyalty  to  principle,  with  none  of  that 
uncalculating  devotion  to  an  ideal  which  makes 
a  life  winsome — ^how  all  this  becomes  a  hindrance 
in  the  path  of  goodness!  And  worse  than  all, 
those  would-be  superior  persons  who  go  about 
thinking  about  how  much  better  they  are  than 
anybody  else,  the  moral  prigs  and  spiritual  snobs 
who  stand  up  and  thank  God  that  they  are  not 
as  other  men  are!    How  they  injure  the  cause  of 

52 


Ill — Lure  of  Goodness 
goodness!     They  make  us  feel  like  saying  some- 
thing wicked. 

But  goodness  seen  as  it  is,  goodness  where  it  is 
simple  and  natural,  genuine  and  spontaneous, 
goodness  as  it  burned  with  a  steady  flame  in  the 
life  of  Bishop  Welcome  and  shone  resplendent  in 
the  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth — goodness  like  that 
is  the  most  interesting  and  winsome  thing  on 
earth.  It  is  the  wine  of  life.  It  is  the  poetry  of 
human  existence.  It  is  human  action  set  to  music 
and  singing  the  same  tune  the  morning  stars  sang 
together  in  that  high  hour  when  all  the  sons  of 
God  shouted  for  joy. 

Now  what  can  we  do  about  it,  you  and  I? 
What  can  we  do  to  help  to  restore  goodness  to  its 
rightful  place  of  honor  and  of  interest?  I  know 
of  nothing  better  than  to  undertake  to  show  the 
world  some  of  our  very  own.  The  best  service 
anyone  can  render  to  the  cause  of  music  is  not  to 
go  about  arguing  until  he  is  red  in  the  face,  trying 
to  convince  people  that  Beethoven  and  Wagner, 
Schubert  and  Brahms,  were  great  composers. 
That  does  not  accomplish  anything.  The  best 
service  he  can  render  to  the  cause  of  music  is  to 
learn  to  play  a  little  of  it  or  to  sing  a  little  of  it 
in  such  a  way  that  people  hear  and  feel  the  power 
and  beauty  of  real  music.  Do  it.  Do  it  yourself. 
It  is  the  only  way. 

The  same  principle  applies  to  this  more  im- 
portant interest  of  goodness.    We  cannot  all  learn 

S3 


Yale  Talks 

to  play,  we  cannot  all  learn  to  sing.  We  could  not, 
if  we  chose,  render  the  Fifth  Symphony  or  the 
Overture  to  Tannhauser  in  such  fashion  that 
the  hearts  of  all  who  heard  would  be  hushed  and 
awed. 

But  we  can  learn  to  live,  and  being  good  is 
just  that — it  is  living.  It  is  living  out  one's  real 
self  and  not  some  unworthy  caricature.  It  is 
living  out  one's  best  self  and  not  some  poor  third- 
rate  substitute.  "This  do,"  the  Master  said,  "and 
thou  shalt  live."  The  other  mode  of  life  is  dying 
by  inches  or  by  yards,  as  the  case  may  be.  What 
those  young  men  saw  in  the  big  city  was  not 
"life,"  it  was  death.  "I  am  come  that  you  may 
have  life  and  have  it  more  abundantly."  When 
by  the  grace  of  God  you  are  making  your  own 
life  simple  and  natural,  genuine  and  spontaneous 
in  its  goodness,  you  will  enter  into  life  to  go  no 
more  out.  And  when  you  lift  up  that  sort  of 
goodness  it  will  draw  men  to*  you  and  it  will  draw 
them  to  Him. 


54 


IV 
How  Old  Are  You? 

WHEN  Jacob  learned  that  his  son  Joseph 
was  still  alive  he  went  down  to  Egypt  to 
visit  him.  While  he  was  there,  Joseph  as  a  mark 
of  respect  to  his  father  had  him  presented  at 
court.  And  when  the  old  patriarch  stood  before 
Pharaoh,  ruler  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  the  king  said 
to  him  courteously,  "How  old  art  thou?"  Jacob 
answered,  "The  years  of  my  pilgrimage  have  been 
one  hundred  and  thirty,  and  they  have  not  yet 
attained  unto  the  years  of  my  fathers  in  the  days 
of  their  pilgrimage."  It  was  a  gracious  answer. 
It  was  a  polite  way  of  telling  Pharaoh  that  he  did 
not  feel  like  an  old  man  at  all,  even  though  he 
had  lived  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  and  that  he 
thought  he  might  be  good  for  some  years  to  come. 
Let  me  ask  you  that  question — How  old  are 
you?  It  is  a  personal  sort  of  question.  If  I 
should  go  about  pressing  it  upon  people  indi- 
vidually I  might  not  meet  with  a  very  hearty 
response.  Men  as  well  as  women  show  some  re- 
luctance about  giving  the  exact  figures,  especially 
when  the  gray  hair  has  begun  to  show  above  their 
ears, 

55 


Yale  Talks 

But  I  am  not  asking  how  long  ago  you  were 
born — that  would  touch  only  the  surface  of  my 
question.  How  much  have  you  lived? — that  is 
the  real  point  of  my  inquiry!  You  cannot  tell 
how  much  a  man  has  lived  by  looking  in  the 
family  Bible  where  the  births  of  the  children  are 
recorded.  Life  is  not  measured  solely  by  years. 
You  must  look  at  what  you  find  written  in  the 
man  himself.  How  much  have  you  seen  and  heard 
and  felt?  How  much  have  you  loved  and  aspired 
and  achieved  in  the  depths  of  your  own  soul? 
How  much  actual  experience  of  a  worthy  sort 
stands  recorded  opposite  your  name  where  the 
angels  of  God  are  writing  all  the  time  ?  Measure 
your  life  in  that  more  intelligent  way  and  tell  me 
what  you  find! 

The  moment  you  undertake  this  more  accurate 
appraisement  you  discover  that  life  has  various 
dimensions.  It  has  length — that  we  all  know  and 
the  length  of  a  man's  life  can  be  easily  stated  in 
years  and  months  and  days,  as  in  a  funeral  notice. 
But  life  may  also  have  breadth  and  height  and 
depth.  However  it  may  be  in  mathematics,  there 
is  a  fourth  dimension  in  human  experience,  and 
we  must  bear  all  these  dimensions  in  mind  when 
we  undertake  to  ascertain  how  much  anyone  has 
lived  or  is  likely  to  live  in  those  years  that  lie 
ahead. 

Let  me  speak  first  of  the  length  of  life.  It  is 
not  the  most  important  of  the  four  dimensions, 

S6 


IV— How  Old  Are  You? 

but  it  is  not  to  be  lightly  regarded.  A  man  must 
have  some  length  of  days,  to  achieve  anything  of 
value.  The  little  child  that  is  born  today  and 
dies  tomorrow  does  not  accomplish  anything — it 
had  no  time  to  show  its  capacity  for  living.  It 
was  only  a  bud  on  the  tree  of  life,  which  never 
opened  into  a  fragrant  blossom,  to  say  nothing  of 
reaching  the  stage  of  ripened  fruit.  It  is  im- 
possible to  do  a  day's  work  in  ten  minutes  or  a 
life-work  in  ten  years. 

And  how  many  long-lived  men  have  done  their 
best  work  when  they  were  past  sixty — some  of 
them  when  they  were  past  seventy!  Gladstone 
became  Prime  Minister  of  the  British  Empire 
three  times  after  he  was  sixty  years  of  age.  He 
added  immensely  to  his  fame  and  to  his  useful- 
ness by  the  ripened  service  of  those  later  years. 
William  Cullen  Bryant  wrote  his  famous  transla- 
tion of  the  Iliad  when  he  was  almost  eighty.  John 
Wesley,  founder  of  the  largest  Protestant  denomi- 
nation in  the  English-speaking  world,  lived  to  be 
nearly  ninety,  preaching,  writing,  traveling,  or- 
ganizing, until  within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death; 
and  some  of  his  best  work  was  done  in  his  old  age. 
Lyman  Abbott  and  Washington  Gladden  in  those 
years  which  lie  in  the  vicinity  of  eighty,  were 
preaching  with  great  acceptance  to  college  stu- 
dents and  writing  leaders  for  the  papers  to  influ- 
ence the  thinking  of  their  fellow  men,  and  pointing 
the  way  of  social  and  spiritual  advance  for  the 

57 


Yale  Talks 

nation.  "With  long  life  will  I  satisfy  Him  and 
show  Him  my  salvation" — this  was  the  promise 
made  of  old  to  the  man  who  dwelt  in  the  secret 
place  of  the  Most  High.  The  wise  man  plans  for 
length  of  days  that  with  ripened  powers  he  may 
still  bring  forth  fruit  in  his  old  age. 

We  may  say  all  this  heartily,  yet  the  length  of 
a  man's  life  is  only  a  secondary  consideration. 
The  long  life  is  not  necessarily  an  interesting  or  a 
useful  one.  There  was  Methuselah !  The  modern 
scholars  tell  us  that  the  names  of  those  long-lived 
old  fellows  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  were  probably 
the  names  of  tribes  rather  than  of  individuals. 
However  that  may  be,  Methuselah  will  serve  as 
an  illustration.  Here  is  the  record  of  his  career 
as  it  stands  in  Holy  Writ, — "And  Methuselah 
begat  sons  and  daughters  and  he  lived  nine  hun- 
dred and  sixty-nine  years  and  he  died." 

That  is  all  that  is  said  about  him — apparently 
that  is  all  there  was  to  say.  His  life  was  a  life 
of  one  dimension;  namely,  length.  "He  lived  nine 
hundred  and  sixty-nine  years  and  he  died" — a 
long,  narrow,  uneventful,  uninteresting  life!  No 
breadth  of  interest  worth  recording;  no  depth  of 
conviction  to  be  noted;  no  height  of  aspiration  to 
place  another  worthy  ideal  in  the  sky  of  human 
desire!  Notliing  but  length — nine  hundred  and 
sixty-nine  years! 

Suppose  he  did  outlive  all  his  contemporaries! 
Suppose  he  lived  longer  than  any  other  man  in 

58 


IV— How  Old  Are  You? 

history!  Suppose  he  had  lived  to  this  hour — 
what  of  it!  If  he  accomplished  nothing  worthy  of 
being  recorded  save  the  fact  that  he  had  a  family 
and  lived  a  long  time,  then  the  full  measure  of 
years  allotted  him  would  only  add  to  his  disgrace. 

How  long  did  Jesus  Christ  live  when  He  was 
here  on  earth?  Not  long,  speaking  after  the 
manner  of  men.  He  was  only  thirty-three  when 
they  put  Him  to  death  on  the  cross.  Methuselah 
lived  thirty  times  as  long.  But  how  much  did 
Christ  live  in  that  brief  time? 

He  spent  thirty  of  those  years  in  mental  pre- 
paration and  spiritual  discipline.  No  wonder  the 
three  years  of  which  we  know  so  much  were  great 
when  we  think  of  those  thirty  silent  years  of  which 
we  know  so  little  standing  behind  them!  Ten 
years  of  preparation  for  one  of  public  service! 
Ten  days  of  thought  and  prayer  for  one  day  of 
healing,  redemptive  action !  Ten  hours  of  silence 
for  one  of  speech!  How  much  He  packed  into 
those  fleeting  years  of  ministry  to  human  need  and 
of  contribution  to  the  cause  of  human  betterment! 
How  mighty  those  three  years  were  in  their  holy 
and  permanent  influence  upon  the  life  of  the  race! 
His  life  was  short  but  it  was  great.  When  men 
speak  of  Him  they  do  not  ask,  "How  long  did  He 
live?"  but  "How  much."  "In  Him  was  life,"  life 
in  all  its  dimensions  and  to  this  hour  that  life  is 
the  light  of  men.  The  length  of  any  life  is  the 
least  important  fact  about  it. 

59 


Yale  Talks 

When  we  come  to  the  breadth  of  life  how  wide 
is  that  man  you  have  in  mind  ?  We  cannot  tell  by 
the  use  of  a  tape  line.  He  may  not  be  as  broad  as 
a  barn  door,  yet  he  may  serve.  If  he  is  a  true 
man  he  has  a  certain  breadth  which  must  be 
measured  in  more  vital  fashion.  What  is  the 
range  of  his  interests?  How  far  afield  do  his 
sympathies  go?  How  many  points  of  contact  has 
he  with  the  life  of  his  city,  his  state,  his  nation? 
How  broadly  does  he  think  when  he  reckons  up 
the  forces  that  make  for  or  against  human  well- 
being?  How  many  different  forms  of  stimulus 
cause  him  to  react? 

Here  is  a  man  who  prides  himself  on  being  a 
specialist.  He  emulates  the  spirit  of  that  German 
scholar,  who  having  given  his  entire  attention  to 
Greek  nouns  regretted  on  his  death-bed  that  he 
had  not  specialized  more  strictly  by  devoting  his 
whole  life  to  the  study  of  the  dative  case.  This 
man  I  have  in  mind  is  ignorant  of  pretty  much 
everything  outside  his  own  particular  field.  In 
that  field  of  interest  he  is  as  bright  and  as  sharp 
as  a  cambric  needle,  and  as  narrow.  His  eye  will 
not  hold  anything  larger  than  the  fine  thread  of 
his  own  specialty.  He  has  no  taste  for  music — 
Beethoven  and  Wagner  simply  bore  him ;  he  cares 
no  more  for  the  Fifth  Symphony  or  for  the  Over- 
ture to  Tannhauser  than  he  does  for  a  last  year's 
bird's  nest.  He  does  not  care  for  pictures — ''Why 
should   I   tramp  wearily  through  long  galleries 

60 


IV— How  Old  Are  You? 

wearing  out  my  legs  and  my  eyes,"  he  says, 
"merely  to  look  at  a  lot  of  old  saints  and  Madonnas 
and  angels?"  He  is  not  interested  in  philosophy 
—Plato  and  Aristotle,  Kant  and  Hegel,  Eucken 
and  Bergson  are  to  him  simply  "dull  old  chaps 
who  never  got  their  feet  on  the  ground."  He  has 
no  use  for  religion — to  him  "it  is  all  up  in  the  air," 
vague,  uncertain,  mysterious.  He  has  narrowed 
his  life  to  a  single  line  of  interest,  losing  out  of  it 
the  fine  quality  of  breadth. 

Here  is  another  type,  the  prosperous,  self-made, 
self-satisfied  man!  He  trots  along  the  narrow 
tow-path  of  his  own  material  success  as  if  he  had 
the  universe  at  his  feet.  He  thinks  that  a  man's 
life  does  consist  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
that  he  owns,  a  certain  eminent  authority  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.  He  has  never  allowed 
his  interest  to  be  deflected  from  his  own  success 
by  any  sympathetic  feeling  for  others.  He  says, 
"Charity  begins  at  home,"  thereby  excusing  him- 
self from  any  participation  in  the  benevolent 
activities  of  the  day.  His  charity  begins  at  home 
and  ends  there  in  its  own  dooryard.  He  has 
fenced  up  his  path  until  it  is  a  narrow,  meagre 
runway.  If  he  were  a  man  of  any  size  he  would 
be  unable  to  squeeze  through.  He  is  more  to  be 
pitied  than  poor  Methuselah  for  his  own  life 
lacks  breadth  and  he  will  not  be  allowed  anything 
like  nine  hundred  and  sixty-nine  years  of  it. 

How  far  those  men  are  from  the  Kingdom  of 

6i 


Yale  Talks 

God!  How  far  they  are  from  the  method  of 
Jesus!  His  life  was  broad  in  its  sympathies,  wide 
in  the  range  of  its  interest.  He  could  sit  at  meat 
with  Zaccheus,  a  rich  man  who  had  been  dis- 
honest and  miserly,  until  the  man  of  means  was 
moved  to  say,  "Half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the 
poor,  and  if  I  have  taken  anything  from  any  man 
wrongfully  I  restore  him  fourfold."  He  could 
talk  with  the  poor  beggar  who  was  born  blind 
until  his  eyes  were  opened  and  the  man  was  say- 
ing, "Once  I  was  blind.  Now  I  see."  He  could 
talk  with  Nicodemus,  a  master  in  Israel,  until 
the  man  of  culture  was  born  anew.  He  could  talk 
with  those  fishermen  in  Galilee  until  they  said, 
"We  never  heard  it  on  this  fashion  before." 

Jesus  was  an  all-round  man,  the  Perfect,  the 
Typal,  the  Representative  Man.  He  was  the  Son 
of  Man,  the  heir  of  all  that  is  splendidly  and  eter- 
nally human.  He  said  to  His  friends,  "Love  your 
neighbors  as  I  have  loved  you."  Love  the  man 
next  to  you.  Love  the  man  who  needs  you.  Love 
the  man  on  the  Jericho  road,  who  has  been  beaten 
and  robbed — help  him  along  to  a  place  of  safety 
and  renewal.  Let  your  sympathies  leap  over  the 
barriers  of  race,  of  religious  belief,  and  of  social 
class  until  you  feel  your  kinship  with  all  hands. 

Break  down  the  walls  which  shut  you  off  from 
those  other  fields  of  thought  and  action  where 
your  brother  men  are  finding  so  much  to  enjoy. 
Brush  away  the  silly  social  conventions  which 

62 


IV— How  Old  Are  You? 

shut  you  up  to  an  exclusive  interest  in  your  own 
set — all  men  and  women  are  much  alike  when  we 
get  the  feathers  off  of  them!  Form  the  habit  of 
getting  the  other  man's  point  of  view — not  always 
to  adopt  it,  but  to  understand  it. 

If  you  are  an  employer  make  it  your  business 
to  know  what  the  labor  unions  and  the  socialists 
are  talking  about,  that  you  may  see  the  problem 
of  industry  from  their  angle  of  vision.  If  you 
are  a  wage  earner  seek  to  understand  what  diffi- 
culties the  man  who  is  a  manufacturer  or  a  mer- 
chant must  face  in  the  development  and  main- 
tenance of  a  business  which  offers  employment  to 
hundreds  of  people  incapable  of  organizing  such 
a  business  themselves.  This  will  make  you  a 
bigger,  a  broader,  and  a  better  man.  You  can 
look  more  intelligently  upon  your  own  things  when 
you  have  learned  to  look  also  on  the  things  of 
others. 

You  may  be  familiar  with  the  doctrine  of  rein- 
carnation as  it  is  taught  in  some  of  the  ethnic 
religions.  They  hold  that  when  a  man  has  fin- 
ished his  earthly  course  he  may  come  back  after 
death  and  be  born  again  in  this  world  in  some 
other  form.  If  he  was  rich  when  he  was  here,  he 
may  come  back  a  poor  man.  If  he  had  a  fine 
social  position,  he  may  come  back  as  a  tramp.  If 
he  was  an  ignorant  man  working  with  his  hands, 
he  may  come  back  as  a  college  president.  If  he 
was  an  invalid  or  a  cripple,  he  may  come  back 

63 


Yale  Talks 

with  abounding  physical  vigor  that  he  may  know 
the  joys  and  the  temptations  of  that  mode  of  life. 
By  a  whole  series  of  reincarnations,  twenty  of 
them  perhaps,  he  will  at  last  attain  to  a  fully 
rounded  human  experience.  He  will  have  taken  all 
the  courses,  required  and  elective,  in  the  big  uni- 
versity of  experience  where  the  college  colors  are 
black  and  blue  because  the  lessons  are  learned  by 
hard  knocks. 

It  is  a  fanciful  idea, — we  have  no  evidence  that 
we  were  ever  here  on  earth  before  or  that  we  shall 
be  here  again.  But  it  suggests  a  feeling  that 
everyone  has  had.  Every  true  man  has  wished 
that  he  might  enter  more  thoroughly  and  more 
sympathetically  into  the  lives  of  his  fellows, 
especially  the  less  fortunate  ones.  Messmates 
they  are  at  the  board  of  life,  yet  how  little  he 
knows  of  the  inner  motives,  the  longings,  and 
yearnings  of  many  of  them! 

I  have  wished  many  a  time  that  I  could  leave 
my  pulpit  and  go  out  and  be  a  teamster  or  a  street- 
car conductor  for  six  months.  I  am  sure  I  would 
come  back  better  able  to  preach  the  Gospel  of 
the  Son  of  man  to  those  men  in  the  language  in 
which  they  were  born.  I  did  belong  for  six 
years  to  the  Central  Labor  Council  in  my  city 
made  up  of  representatives  from  the  various  labor 
unions.  I  represented  the  "Ministers  Union"  and 
I  had  a  voice  and  a  vote  along  with  the  carpenters, 
bricklayers,  stone  masons,  the  printers,  plumbers, 

64 


TV— How  Old  Are  You? 

the  painters  and  all  the  rest.  It  broadened  me  out 
until  at  the  end  of  those  six  years  I  felt  that  an 
ell  had  been  built  on  each  side  of  my  nature  to 
accommodate  the  fresh  supply  of  sympathetic 
interest. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  only  one  man  among  the 
millions  of  men  in  this  country  in  his  day.  From 
the  hour  when  he  was  born  in  that  log  cabin  in 
the  State  of  Kentucky  until  the  day  he  entered 
the  White  House,  he  was  compelled  to  follow  a 
somewhat  narrow  path.  But  when  he  really 
faced  his  life-work  he  was  able  to  enter  so  sym- 
pathetically into  the  feelings  of  others,  northern 
men  and  southern  men,  white  men  and  black  men, 
men  who  wanted  "States  Rights"  and  men  who 
believed  in  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  men  who 
were  for  "peace  at  any  price"  and  men  who  faced 
the  stern  necessity  of  Civil  War — he  entered  so 
sympathetically  into  their  feelings  that  it  seemed 
as  if  the  whole  American  people  lived  and  moved 
and  had  its  being  in  the  heart  of  that  greatest 
American.  "With  malice  toward  none,  with 
charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God 
gave  him  to  see  the  right,"  he  gathered  up  all  these 
interests  into  the  arms  of  his  effort  to  the  end  that 
"government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for 
the  people  should  not  perish  from  the  earth."  His 
life  was  not  long — the  assassin's  bullet  cut  it  short 
— but  it  was  exceedingly  broad. 

In  the  parable  of  the  sower  some  seed  fell  by 

6s 


Yale  Talks 

the  wayside  where  the  ground  was  hard  and  it 
failed  to  grow.  Some  fell  among  thorns  where 
the  soil  was  overgrown  with  noxious  weeds  and 
it  became  unfruitful.  Some  fell  where  there  was 
no  depth  of  earth  and  because  the  soil  was  thin 
it  withered  away. 

The  sorry  fate  of  this  last  bit  of  seed  represents 
the  failure  of  those  lives  which  are  shallow,  super- 
ficial, all  on  the  surface.  They  receive  good  im- 
pressions readily,  and  just  as  readily  let  them  go. 
They  live  by  custom,  usage  and  the  easy  con- 
ventions of  those  who  surround  them.  When 
they  are  in  Rome  they  do  as  the  Romans  do. 
When  they  are  in  New  York  they  do  as  Broadway 
does,  even  though  that  may  mean  a  much  less 
wholesome  tjq^e  of  life  than  the  one  they  put  up  in 
their  own  home  towns.  They  rise  or  fall  with  easy 
unconcern  to  the  moral  level  of  those  with  whom 
they  find  themselves. 

Their  lives  are  thin.  They  have  no  depth  of 
conviction  rooting  down  into  that  which  is  vital 
and  fundamental.  They  have  no  deep,  under- 
lying purposes  and  principles  of  action.  They 
have  no  deep,  sweet  wells  of  feeling  on  which  they 
may  draw  for  wholesome  impulse. 

Off  the  coast  of  Labrador  I  have  seen  huge 
icebergs  towering  up  three  or  four  hundred  feet 
in  the  air.  I  have  seen  them  sailing  due  south  in 
the  teeth  of  a  strong  head  wind.  The  gale  was 
blowing  from  the  south  thirty,  forty,  fifty  miles 

66 


IV— How  Old  Are  You? 

an  hour,  yet  those  icebergs  sailed  on  toward  the 
south  without  ever  tacking.  They  had  neither 
sails  nor  rudder  by  which  they  could  tack.  The 
secret  of  it  lay  in  the  fact  that  seven-eighths  of 
the  bulk  of  an  iceberg  is  under  water.  The  great 
Labrador  current  makes  strongly  toward  the 
south.  It  gripped  the  huge  bulk  of  those  icebergs 
and  bore  them  along  no  matter  how  the  wind 
might  blow  at  the  surface. 

Here  is  a  life  which  is  able  to  say  what  Jesus 
said,  "I  come  not  to  do  my  own  will  but  the  will 
of  Him  who  sent  me."  The  man  has  a  sense  of 
mission,  of  purpose,  of  deep  underlying  agree- 
ment with  the  will  of  God.  The  whole  venture 
and  process  of  his  activities  are  embedded  in  a 
moral  order.  They  lie  secure  in  the  will  and  pur- 
pose of  the  Almighty.  The  man  has  the  power 
which  comes  from  depth. 

You  will  sometimes  hear  it  said  of  a  man — and 
it  is  high  praise — "He  is  always  the  same."  He 
may  be  traveling  the  high  road  of  prosperity  with 
flags  flying  and  bands  playing,  or  he  may  be 
walking  through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Defeat.  He  may  be  standing  in  the  presence  of 
the  rich  or  he  may  be  in  the  humbler  homes  of  the 
poor.  He  may  find  himself  in  an  atmosphere 
charged  with  religious  aspiration  or  he  may  be 
in  the  company  of  scoffers.  He  is  never  turned 
aside  nor  thrown  down  nor  beaten  back  by  any 
of  these  varying  situations.    He  is  always  just  the 

67 


Yale  Talks 

same — a  simple  genuine  God-fearing,  man-loving 
soul. 

How  does  this  man  who  is  "always  the  same" 
maintain  that  fine  poise  and  balance.  His  life 
has  depth  of  purpose,  of  conviction,  of  feeling. 
He  draws  his  supplies  from  the  lower  levels  of  his 
being  where  a  man's  real  life  may  be  hid  with 
Christ  in  God.  He  has  the  serene  strength  which 
comes  from  depth  of  life. 

The  height  of  a  man's  life  is  not  indicated  by  his 
present  achievements.  You  cannot  determine  how 
tall  he  is  by  standing  him  against  the  door  and 
measuring  the  deeds  he  has  done  or  the  actual 
attainments  he  has  made  in  personal  character. 
It  is  not  what  you  have  done,  it  is  what  you  want 
to  do  and  mean  to  do  that  tells  the  story.  It  is 
not  what  you  are  at  this  moment,  it  is  what  you 
want  to  be  and  intend  to  be  some  day  that  marks 
you  up  or  down  on  the  books  of  the  Recording 
Angel. 

I  once  heard  a  young  Hindoo  say  in  his  broken 
English,  "I  am  not  what  I  ought  to  be.  I  am  not 
what  I  want  to  be.  But  by  the  grace  of  God  I  am 
not  what  I  was  and  I  mean  to  be  like  Him." 
There  you  have  it!  The  real  height  of  every 
man's  life  must  be  measured  by  the  upward,  out- 
ward, Godward  reach  of  his  own  aspiration  and 
resolve. 

Here  is  a  man  in  the  slums!  He  bears  the 
marks  of  moral  failure  written  all  over  him.    He 

68 


IV— How  Old  Are  You? 

is  stained  by  the  coarse  sins  of  the  flesh.  He  has 
lied  until  his  tongue  is  twisted;  he  has  been  dis- 
honest so  many  times  that  his  hand  is  like  a  claw. 
His  mind  is  a  cage  of  unclean  beasts  and  his 
heart  is  a  den  for  creeping  things. 

"How  tall  is  that  man,  morally  speaking?"  you 
ask.  I  do  not  know.  I  cannot  tell  until  I  know 
what  he  means  to  do  with  himself.  If  he  is 
actually  saying  in  his  heart  what  a  certain  moral 
failure  once  said  in  a  far  country,  he  may  be 
towering  up  like  a  sequoia  tree.  If  he  is  willing 
to  confess  his  sins  with  no  whimpering  excuses; 
if  he  will  stand  out  in  the  open  saying,  "I  have 
sinned  against  Heaven  and  before  men;  I  am  no 
more  worthy  to  be  called  a  man;  but  I  will  arise 
and  go  to  my  Father,"  and  if  he  is  readv  to  stand 
up  and  go,  putting  evil  behind  him  and  putting 
his  trust  in  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  then  I  find  in  him  an  earnest  and  a  promise 
of  future  growth  which  give  his  life  the  dignity 
and  the  height  of  spiritual  worth.  Measure  every 
man  not  by  his  present  achievements  but  by  the 
upward,  outward  reach  of  his  aspiration  and 
resolve. 

Give  me  your  answer  then  before  we  go!  How 
much  have  you  lived — and  what  is  more  to  the 
purpose,  how  much  are  you  planning  to  live  in 
those  years  which  lie  ahead?  What  are  the 
measurements  according  to  which  you  are  laying 
out  that  spiritual  edifice,  that  building  of  God, 

69 


Yale  Talks 

that  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the 
realm  of  moral  values? 

Bring  your  materials  and  lay  them  on  that 
foundation  which  has  stood  the  test,  for  other 
foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  which  is  laid 
in  Jesus  Christ.  Have  in  mind  these  four  dimen- 
sions when  you  undertake  to  build.  Live  so  that 
length  of  days  may  be  yours  if  it  please  God — 
then  you  will  not  drop  your  task  half  finished. 
Open  your  heart  on  all  sides  to  the  needs  and 
appeals  of  your  fellow  men,  that  your  life  may 
have  the  breadth  which  comes  from  a  wide  range 
of  sympathetic  interest.  Have  that  depth  of  con- 
viction and  purpose  which  means  stability.  Then 
let  your  hopes  reach  out  among  the  stars  as  you 
strive  to  wear  at  last  the  likeness  and  image  of  the 
Son  of  God.  Live  in  that  mood  and  after  that 
method,  that  you  may  have  life  abundant,  life 
eternal,  life  which  is  life  indeed! 


70 


V 

The  Power  of  a  Resolute  Minority 

WHEN  the  Israelites  had  escaped  from 
Egypt  and  had  reached  the  borders  of  the 
Promised  Land  they  sent  twelve  men  ahead  to 
reconnoiter.  These  spies  were  to  bring  back  a 
report  upon  the  land  the  Israelites  were  sent  to 
conquer.  When  they  returned  ten  of  them  said 
that  it  could  not  be  done,  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  were  too  great.    They  counseled  a  retreat. 

But  the  other  two  brought  in  a  minority  report. 
They  believed  that  a  splendid  victory  could  be 
won  by  an  immediate  advance  along  the  whole 
line.  It  was  two  against  ten,  but  it  turned  out 
that  the  two  had  the  right  of  it.  Their  judgment 
prevailed  and  the  Israelites  went  in  to  conquer 
that  country  which  they  held  and  ruled  for  fifteen 
centuries.  And  when  the  victory  was  won  the 
two  men  had  the  joy  of  knowing  that  their  influ- 
ence had  turned  the  scale.  It  suggests  the  power 
of  a  resolute  minority. 

The  twelve  men  all  saw  the  same  set  of  facts. 
This  is  the  way  their  commission  read,  "See  the 
land  what  it  is,  whether  fat  or  lean,  open  or 
wooded.      See   the    people   that    dwell    therein, 

71 


Yale  Talks 

whether  they  be  few  or  many,  strong  or  weak, 
dwelling  in  tents  or  dwelling  in  walled  cities." 
"Get  the  facts,"  Moses  said,  "and  bring  them  to 


me." 


The  twelve  men  all  traveled  together.  They 
saw  the  same  hills  and  crossed  the  same  valleys. 
They  saw  the  same  walled  cities  and  the  same 
roving  Bedouins  in  their  black  tents.  They  saw 
the  same  resources  of  the  country  stretching  away 
on  every  side  and  the  same  obstacles  to  be  over- 
come. It  was  identically  the  same  situation  which 
met  the  gaze  of  all  those  men. 

Herein  their  experience  is  a  leaf  from  the  book 
of  life.  The  world  we  live  in,  taking  it  by  and 
large,  is  the  same  gigantic  fact  for  all  hands.  The 
physical  order  which  confronts  you  and  me  and 
him  is  the  same  big,  solid  fact  for  us  all.  The 
moral  order  which  enfolds  us,  whether  we  like  it 
or  not,  making  the  way  of  the  transgressor  hard 
and  the  way  of  the  righteous  the  way  of  peace  and 
honor,  is  the  same  unyielding  fact  for  us  all.  The 
great  God  who  looks  down  upon  us  whether  we 
look  up  at  Him  or  not  is  the  same  Almighty  Fact 
for  all  hands.  And  we  are  sent  out,  as  were  the 
spies,  into  this  complexity  of  facts  and  forces  to 
make  report  upon  what  we  find  and  to  order  our 
lives  according  to  that  finding. 

It  is  altogether  right  that  it  should  be  so.  "I 
go  the  way  of  all  the  earth,"  Joshua  said.  He 
took  the  middle  of  the  road  and  accepted  his  full 

72 


V — A  Resolute  Minority 

share  of  the  common  lot.  It  was  the  only  way  he 
could  become  the  leader  and  servant  of  his  day 
and  generation.  "He  was  tempted  in  all  points 
like  as  we  are,"  was  said  of  a  greater  than  Joshua. 
He  also  tasted  the  human  situation,  death  in- 
cluded, for  every  man.  In  that  way  He  became 
indeed  the  Typal,  the  Representative,  the  Perfect 
Man,  the  Son  of  man,  able  also  to  be  the  Savior 
of  men.  The  only  men  who  can  "draw  the  thing 
as  they  see  it  for  the  God  of  things  as  they  are" 
will  be  found  to  be  the  men  who  travel  the  main 
road  and  face  the  needs  which  belong  to  human 
experience  in  the  large.  The  twelve  men  in  this 
story  were  faced  by  the  same  set  of  facts  and 
forces  challenging  them  to  do  their  best. 

Ten  of  the  twelve  failed  to  see  things  in  their 
right  perspective.  Here  is  the  report  they  made! 
"It  is  a  good  land,  an  exceedingly  good  land.  It 
is  a  land  that  flows  with  milk  and  honey.  This  is 
the  fruit  of  it" — and  they  pointed  to  a  cluster  of 
grapes  so  large  that  to  avoid  crushing  it  they  had 
carried  it  on  a  staff  between  two  men.  "But  the 
people  are  strong,  the  children  of  Anak,  the 
giants  are  there — we  were  like  grasshoppers  in 
their  sight;  and  their  cities  are  walled  up  to 
Heaven." 

These  men  were  scared,  and  when  men  are 
scared  their  souls  shrivel  up  until  they  feel  no 
larger  than  grasshoppers.  They  were  moral 
cowards  and  when  a  coward  looks  at  the  difficul- 

73 


Yale  Talks 

ties  in  the  way  they  seem  to  reach  up  to  the  very 
clouds  of  Heaven.  So  the  ten  men  brought  in  an 
evil  report  of  the  land. 

How  true  to  life  it  all  is !  Every  man  gets  as  he 
brings.  He  sees  in  any  situation  what  he  has  eyes 
to  see.  It  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  eyesight 
as  of  insight.  It  is  the  mind  that  sees  and  not  the 
eyes  alone.  And  the  reaction  which  any  set  of 
facts  produces  upon  any  man  is  determined  in 
great  measure  by  his  own  powers  of  perception 
and  appreciation. 

Here  were  ten  men  who  saw  nothing  except  that 
which  lay  at  the  surface,  and  when  they  made 
their  report  they  were  all  astray!  When  they 
added  up  their  columns  of  figures  they  gave  full 
place  to  the  sons  of  Anak  and  the  walled  cities, 
but  they  left  out  of  the  account  the  might  of  moral 
purpose  and  the  aid  of  the  Almighty.  That  ren- 
dered their  trial  balance  misleading.  They  had 
not  eyes  to  see,  nor  minds  to  understand,  nor 
hearts  to  feel  the  force  of  certain  finer  and  more 
subtle  forms  of  energy  which  were  at  work  that 
day  in  the  Land  of  Promise. 

How  many  people  there  are  who  allow  them- 
selves to  be  driven  off  the  field  by  purely  material 
considerations!  They  see  the  Canaanites  and 
the  city  walls,  but  nothing  else.  You  will  hear 
them  pitying  themselves  as  the  victims  of  circum- 
stances. "We  are  what  we  are  by  the  operation 
of    certain    forces,     which    we    cannot    control. 

74 


V — A  Resolute  Minority 

Therefore,  it  would  be  better  for  us  to  have  died 
in  the  land  of  Egypt  where  we  were  sure  of  our 
flesh  pots."  And  the  men  who  take  this  view  of 
life  go  about  with  their  hearts  in  their  boots,  feel- 
ing that  they  are  no  better  than  so  many  grass- 
hoppers. 

How  many  men  are  frightened  out  of  their 
principles  by  some  thoughtless  majority!  "Here 
is  a  situation,"  they  say,  "where  it  is  ten  to  two, 
five  to  one,  against  the  mode  of  life  to  which  we 
were  brought  up."  It  must  be  that  the  ten  have 
the  right  of  it.  It  would  be  foolhardy  to  fly  in  the 
face  of  such  a  majority.  They  seem  to  forget 
that  moral  questions  are  never  settled  by  a  show 
of  hands.  They  forget  that  you  cannot  state  the 
real  significance  of  many  a  situation  in  figures. 
The  truth  oftentimes  is  a  matter  of  emphasis,  of 
perspective,  of  atmosphere,  and  this  cannot  be 
conveyed  in  a  column  of  figures.  And  mere  sta- 
tistics can  be  made  to  lie,  like  other  things.  If 
figures  always  dropped  dead  when  they  uttered 
falsehoods  as  Ananias  and  Sapphira  did,  the  ten 
digits  would  have  been  buried  long  ago.  There 
are  any  number  of  truths  in  human  life  which 
cannot  be  set  down  in  rows  of  figures. 

The  men  are  foolish  indeed  who  allow  them- 
selves to  be  crushed  by  the  mere  weight  of  num- 
bers. The  timid  politician  is  afraid  of  a  mob 
because  it  is  big  and  can  howl — he  is  more  afraid 
of  the  mob  than  of  his  own  conscience.    The  man 

75 


Yale  Talks 
in  public  life  is  more  afraid  of  some  yellow  journal 
which  claims  the  largest  circulation  and  yells  in 
headlines  than  of  the  verdict  of  those  people  of 
intelligence  and  character  whose  estimates  really 
matter.  The  college  man  may  be  scared  out  of 
his  own  finer  mode  of  life  by  some  thoughtless 
bunch  which  indulges  in  coarse  talk,  loose  con- 
duct, and  low  intellectual  standards.  He  is 
actually  afraid  to  allow  his  own  best  self  to  stand 
out  clear  and  firm.  The  boy  in  preparatory  school 
may  find  himself  in  a  group  where  it  is  ten  to  two 
against  those  principles  to  which  he  is  most  in- 
clined. Thus  numbers  make  cowards  of  us  all  and 
the  pale  cast  of  resolution  is  sicklied  o'er  by  an 
array  of  figures. 

"I  was  afraid,"  the  man  in  the  parable  said,  the 
man  who  had  received  but  one  talent.  "I  was 
afraid  and  I  went  and  hid."  If  he  had  received 
ten  talents  and  had  been  the  most  gifted  man  in 
the  community,  he  seemed  to  think  that  he  might 
not  have  crawled  under  the  bed  when  the  time 
came  for  him  to  show  his  colors;  but  because  he 
was  just  an  ordinary,  everyday  man  with  one 
fairly  good-sized  talent  he  had  not  the  necessary 
moral  fibre  to  be  what  he  was  and  to  do  what  he 
could  do.  "I  was  afraid  and  I  went  and  hid" — 
and  thus  he  lost  his  talent  and  his  soul. 

There  are  a  few  people  in  the  world  who  are 
hypocrites  because  they  are  trying  to  appear 
better  than  they  really  are.    There  are  not  many 

76 


V— A  Resolute  Minority 

of  them — there  are  scarcely  enough  of  them  to 
leave  what  the  chemist  would  call  "a  trace."  But 
there  are  many  weak-kneed  souls  who  are  guilty 
of  moral  insincerity  in  not  being  willing  to  appear 
as  good  as  they  really  are.  The  boy  of  sixteen  is 
so  afraid  of  being  regarded  as  a  moral  prig  that 
he  leans  over  backward  and  does  not  appear  to  be 
as  straight  as  he  really  is.  The  young  man  at 
college  would  sometimes  rather  be  put  down  as 
fast  or  loose  in  his  morals  than  to  be  known  for 
the  clean,  fine,  serious  qualities  of  mind  and  heart 
which  are  truly  his.  In  all  such  cases  they  are 
hypocrites,  and  I  have  the  feeling  that  the  man 
who  is  unwilling  to  be  known  for  the  best  that  is 
in  him  does  more  harm  than  the  man  who  is  trying 
to  appear  better  than  he  really  is. 

The  moral  courage  of  that  minority  finally 
carried  the  day.  It  was  not  accomplished  without 
struggle — the  two  men  had  a  hard  fight  on  their 
hands.  When  the  ten  made  their  discouraging 
report  the  foolish  Israelites  sat  down  and  wept. 
"They  cried  all  night,"  the  record  says.  "Would 
God  we  had  died  in  Egypt!  Would  God  we  had 
died  in  the  wilderness!"  Would  God  anything 
had  happened  to  us  rather  than  that  we  be  com- 
pelled to  face  these  difficulties! 

And  ere  long  those  moral  cowards  were  all 
dead.  They  were  killed  off  by  the  divine  con- 
tempt. They  were  too  anaemic  to  get  through  the 
winter.     ^Tt  came  to  pass  that  the  men  who 

77 


Yale  Talks 

brought  the  evil  report  of  the  land  died  by  the 
plague  before  the  Lord,  but  Caleb  and  Joshua 
lived."  The  two  men  who  made  up  the  resolute 
minority  lived  on  to  fight  their  way  through  to  a 
splendid  success  and  to  enjoy  their  full  share  of 
the  Land  of  Promise. 

Here  is  the  report  they  made!  "The  land  is  an 
exceedingly  good  land,  it  flows  with  milk  and 
honey.  It  is  a  land  where  one  may  eat  bread 
without  scarceness  and  not  lack  any  good  thing, 
and  we  are  abundantly  able  to  go  up  and  possess 
it.  If  the  Lord  delight  in  us  because  of  the  pur- 
pose we  cherish  and  the  spirit  we  show.  He  will 
give  us  the  land.  Let  us  go  up  at  once  and  possess 
it."  They,  too,  had  seen  the  giants,  the  sons  of 
Anak,  but  even  so  they  were  not  ready  to  put 
themselves  in  the  grasshopper  class.  They,  too, 
had  seen  the  walled  cities,  but  those  mighty  de- 
fenses in  their  eyes  did  not  reach  quite  up  to 
Heaven.  In  the  face  of  everything  they  were 
ready  to  make  an  advance. 

They  formed  a  sounder  judgment  of  the  situa- 
tion because  they  saw  more.  They  saw  everything 
between  the  ground  and  the  stars,  things  material 
and  things  spiritual.  They  saw  that  it  was  not  a 
mere  squabble  between  a  few  self-seeking  Jews  on 
the  one  hand  and  a  few  tribes  of  corrupt  Ca- 
naanites  on  the  other.  It  was  the  attempt  to 
secure  a  footing  for  that  Hebrew  nation  which  was 
destined  in  its  unfolding  life  to  take  the  right  of 

78 


V — A  Resolute  Minority 

the  line  in  spiritual  leadership  for  centuries. 
What  a  history  lay  ahead  of  those  resolute  men 
who  brought  in  the  minority  report!  Our  Bible 
was  written  by  Hebrews.  Our  Savior  was  a 
Hebrew,  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea.  Great 
issues  were  at  stake  and  those  two  men  of  insight 
recognized  something  of  the  moral  significance  of 
their  action  when  they  called  for  an  immediate 
advance. 

It  was  no  dare-devil  spirit — they  were  men  of 
faith.  They  believed  in  themselves  and  in  their 
fellows  and  in  God.  They  saw  the  red  thread  of 
moral  purpose  running  through  all  human  history. 
They  saw  the  great  divine  intention  underlying 
and  overarching  all  our  earthly  activity.  And 
there  lies  the  difference  between  the  ten  who  fail 
and  the  two  who  win  out.  The  spirit  of  distrust 
causes  men  to  shrivel  up  like  grasshoppers  while 
the  spirit  of  faith  makes  them  brave  and  strong. 
It  was  the  spirit  of  faith  which  enabled  Gideon 
and  Barak,  Moses  and  Samuel,  David  Livingstone 
and  Abraham  Lincoln,  Lloyd  George  and  Wood- 
row  Wilson  to  work  righteousness,  subdue  king- 
doms and  put  to  flight  the  arm.ies  of  evil.  God 
be  praised  for  men  who  believe  something — they 
are  the  only  men  who  count! 

Here  were  two  men  who  were  not  whining 
about  being  the  victims  of  circumstances!  They 
had  learned  to  stand  erect  with  all  their  faculties 
at  attention  waiting  for  the  word  of  command  to 

79 


Yale  Talks 

go  ahead.  They  "looked  upward  not  downward, 
outward  not  inward,  forward  not  backward,"  and 
were  ready  to  lend  a  hand.  They  were  masters 
of  their  fate,  the  captains  of  their  souls.  They 
faced  the  world  undaunted. 

"One  who  never  tum'd  his  back  but  march 'd  breast 
forward, 
Never  doubted  clouds  would  break, 
Never  dream'd,  though  right  were  worsted,  wrong 

would  triumph, 
Held  we  fall  to  rise,  are  baffled  to  fight  better, 
Sleep  to  wake." 

Such  men  in  the  fifteenth  century  before  Christ, 
or  in  the  twentieth  century  after,  in  Palestine  or 
in  Connecticut,  are  destined  through  the  aid  of 
Him  who  rules  the  issue  to  win  the  day. 

Two  men  of  the  right  sort  in  a  store  or  an  office 
can  change  the  moral  atmosphere  and  raise  the 
tone  of  conversation  to  a  higher  level  by  allowing 
the  best  that  is  in  them  to  stand  revealed.  Two 
men  in  a  college  class  can  change  the  spirit  of 
that  class  by  the  fine  quaUty  of  the  principles  they 
display  and  by  the  splendor  of  their  ideals.  Two 
boys  in  any  group  can  put  a  new  face  on  the  whole 
situation  by  the  genuineness  of  their  own  lives. 
The  issue  is  decided  by  the  power  of  the  resolute 
minority  faced  right. 

The  victory  of  this  high-minded  group  is  as- 
sured by  their  sense  of  agreement  with  the  will  of 

80 


V — A  Resolute  Minority 

God.  "There  is  a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends" 
and  when  we  are  striving  to  shape  them  ourselves 
according  to  His  wish,  we  have  the  sense  of  a  great 
reinforcement.  When  we  are  working  out  any- 
thing worthy  to  be  called  salvation,  God  is  work- 
ing within  us  to  accomplish  His  good  pleasure. 
When  any  man  is  rowing  his  boat  toward  the 
haven  where  God  would  have  him  arrive,  he  has 
the  wind  and  the  tide  with  him  doubling  his  effec- 
tiveness in  every  stroke  he  makes.  With  the  sense 
of  that  Almighty  Aid  pledged  to  his  advantage 
any  man  can  face  an  adverse  majority  without 
flinching. 

Here  was  Jesus  Christ  caring  not  a  straw  for 
the  mere  fact  of  numbers!  He  never  gained  a 
large  following,  even  though  He  spake  as  never 
man  spake.  He  chose  twelve  intimates  and  gave 
the  best  part  of  the  last  two  years  of  His  public 
ministry  to  training  those  men.  He  lived  with 
them  until  they  were  saturated  with  His  ideas 
and  steeped  in  His  spirit.  They  were  branches 
of  the  true  vine,  projections  of  His  own  potent 
life.  Then  He  stood  up  and  pitted  them  against 
the  full  strength  of  pagan  Rome.  "Ye  shall  sit 
upon  twelve  thrones,"  He  said,  in  recognition  of 
their  powers  of  spiritual  leadership.  They  never 
wore  the  purple  nor  had  crowns  on  their  heads, 
but  they  set  in  operation  a  process  of  spiritual 
renewal  which  was  nothing  less  than  regal. 

You  will  find  any  number  of  situations  where 

8i 


Yale  Talks 

some  hard  task  has  to  be  done  by  a  small  number 
of  men.  There  are  difficult  causes  to  be  advanced. 
There  are  forlorn  hopes  worth  fighting  for  to  the 
end  that  they  may  become  no  more  forlorn,  but 
the  earnest  of  coming  victory.  There  are  fellows 
made  unpopular  by  some  defect  of  manner  or 
oddity  in  appearance  but  with  splendid  stuff  in 
them,  who  need  friends  to  aid  them  in  realizing 
the  promise  of  their  lives.  All  the  more  honor  to 
those  who  have  eyes  to  see  and  are  ready  to  put  in 
their  best  strength  to  that  end. 

You  will  recall  that  story  of  Sodom.  The  city 
had  become  so  foul  in  its  morals  that  the  Judge  of 
all  the  earth  proposed  to  destroy  it,  lock,  stock 
and  barrel.  But  it  was  suggested  that  perhaps 
fifty  righteous  men  might  be  found  in  it,  and  that 
they  ought  not  to  be  destroyed  with  the  guilty. 
The  Lord  said  He  would  spare  it  if  fifty  good 
men  could  be  found  there.  Then  the  petitioner, 
realizing  that  good  men  were  scarce  in  Sodom, 
asked  if  the  requirements  might  be  reduced  to 
forty,  and  then  he  suggested  thirty,  and  then 
twenty,  and  finally  he  brought  the  figures  down 
to  ten. 

The  Judge  of  all  the  earth  intent  upon  doing 
right  assured  him  that  if  even  ten  good  men 
could  be  found  in  the  place  He  would  spare  it 
for  their  sake.  But  even  the  ten  good  men  were 
not  forthcoming  and  so  Sodom  was  wiped  off  the 
map  by  fire  and  brimstone.    Ten  righteous  men 

82 


V— A  Resolute  Minority 
would  have  saved  Sodom!  Ten  righteous  men 
placed  at  strategic  points  in  the  community  will 
save  any  city.  It  suggests  the  tremendous  sig- 
nificance of  a  resolute  minority  in  active  agree- 
ment with  the  Will  of  God. 

Where  will  you  stand,  then,  with  the  thoughtless 
majority  which  may  be  showing  the  white  feather 
of  moral  purpose,  or  with  Caleb  and  Joshua,  men 
possessed  of  courage  and  ready  for  the  great 
advance?  You  may  be  facing  at  this  moment  the 
obligation  to  live  a  clear-cut,  definite  Christian 
life,  but  the  odds  against  you,  so  far  as  numbers 
go,  are  ten  to  two.  What  of  it!  The  very  diffi- 
culty of  the  undertaking  offers  the  more  effective 
challenge  to  your  best  powers  of  mind  and  heart. 
Why  not  stand  with  the  saving  remnant  which  is 
somewhere  to  be  found  in  any  community!  Why 
not  stand  with  the  seven  thousand  moral  reserves 
who  have  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal,  thereby 
becoming  the  hope  of  the  nation!  Why  not  link 
up  your  lives  with  Him  who  is  able  to  bring  us 
off  from  any  field  of  effort  more  than  conquerors! 
Then  your  way  of  life  will  be  a  steady  advance 
into  your  appointed  share  of  some  splendid  land 
of  promise. 


83 


VI 

Unconscious  Influence 

THERE  was  a  man  named  Peter  in  the  Early 
Church  who  had  come  to  be  known  as  an 
upright,  downright,  outright  sort  of  Christian. 
He  had  done  so  many  good  deeds,  he  had  spoken 
so  many  true  and  timely  words,  he  was  so  simple, 
unaffected  and  genuine  in  his  whole  make-up  that 
the  people  came  to  believe  that  his  very  shadow 
would  do  a  man  good.  The  humanity  of  the  man 
I  was  so  warm  and  real  that  they  invested 
it  with  a  certain  miraculous  quality.  "So  they 
brought  the  sick  people  into  the  streets  that  at 
least  Peter's  shadow  might  fall  on  them  as  he 
passed  by." 

We  are  not  told  that  any  sick  people  were 
actually  healed  in  that  way.  The  record  does  not 
say.  It  was  expecting  a  good  deal  of  a  shadow. 
But  the  very  fact  that  they  did  it  was  a  splendid 
tribute  to  the  quality  of  the  man.  They  believed 
in  him  and  they  felt  that  something  subtle,  mag- 
netic, redemptive  would  emanate  from  liim  and 
reach  those  sufferers  through  his  very  shadow.  It 
was  their  testimony  to  the  silent,  powerful  con- 
tagion of  a  thoroughly  good  life. 

84 


VI — Unconscious  Influence 

It  was  a  form  of  energy  which  was  entirely 
personal.  It  had  not  been  organized  into  any  kind 
of  an  institution.  It  had  not  been  delegated  to 
any  sort  of  committee.  I  wonder  if  Peter  ever 
served  on  a  committee.  If  he  escaped  all  that  in 
his  busy  life  he  was  in  luck.  It  was  just  a  reflec- 
tion, a  projection,  so  to  speak,  of  Peter  himself 
stretched  out  on  the  grass.  It  was  broad  with 
Peter's  breadth.  If  he  had  been  built  on  narrow, 
meagre  lines,  it  would  have  been  narrow  and 
meagre.  It  was  tall  or  short,  according  to  Peter's 
own  stature.  It  had  in  it  all  the  lines  and  angles 
of  Peter's  appearance  as  faithfully  as  the  sun 
could  reproduce  them.  To  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses it  was  Peter  himself  spread  out  on  the 
ground  where  the  sick  people  were  lying. 

Now  the  most  potent  and  lasting  sort  of  influ- 
ence is  just  like  that.  It  is  not  so  much  what  you 
say;  it  is  not  so  much  what  you  do — it  is  what 
you  are  that  does  the  business.  It  is  what  you 
are  when  you  are  not  saying  anything  or  doing 
anything.  It  is  what  you  are  when  no  one  is 
looking  or  listening.  It  is  a  certain  atmosphere 
which  you  create  and  carry  with  you  which  regis- 
ters its  impress  upon  other  lives  for  good  or  ill. 
It  is  a  form  of  energy  as  silent  and  invisible  as 
the  power  of  gravitation — and  in  the  realm  of 
character  building  as  mighty  through  God  to  the 
pulling  down  of  the  strongholds  of  evil.  Every 
man  develops  and  maintains  that  personal  some- 

85 


Yale  Talks 

thing  which  goes  with  him  wherever  he  goes, 
laying  its  hand  upon  every  life  which  comes  within 
the  length  of  his  cable-tow. 

The  highest  thing  we  know  on  earth  is  human 
personality.  It  is  there  that  the  likeness  and 
image  of  God  emerge.  When  any  man  is  richly 
endowed  in  mind  and  heart  we  say  of  him,  "He 
has  a  strong  personality."  "Have  dominion," 
God  said  at  the  start  to  the  human  factors  in  His 
creation.  "Have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the 
sea  and  the  fowl  of  the  air,  over  the  cattle  and  the 
creeping  things."  He  knew  that  in  every  field 
of  effort  human  personality  would  determine  the 
issue. 

Caesar,  Luther,  Cromwell,  Lincoln,  these  men 
made  history!  They  changed  the  course  of 
human  events.  They  set  the  pace  of  progress. 
They  gave  shape  and  content  to  what  had  been 
without  form  and  void.  They  did  it  by  being 
what  they  were.  By  the  vigor  of  their  thought 
and  by  the  strength  of  their  wills,  by  the  wide 
range  of  their  interests  and  by  the  high  quality  of 
their  principles  they  became  creative.  And  that 
power  of  personality  must  be  gained  and  held  by 
each  man  for  himself.  It  cannot  be  taught  in  a 
correspondence  school,  nor  sent  here  or  there  by 
express.  It  is  right  there  where  the  man  is  and 
nowhere  else.  Once  gained  it  can  be  wielded  for 
good  or  for  ill,  according  to  the  moral  purpose  of 
the  man,  as  the  mightiest  force  in  human  affairs. 

86 


VI — Unconscious  Influence 

We  are  told  that  Napoleon  in  his  best  days 
would,  on  the  eve  of  every  great  battle,  send  for 
his  marshals  and  have  them  come  one  by  one  to  his 
own  tent.  There  in  silence  he  would  clasp  each 
man's  hand,  look  into  his  eyes  for  a  moment  and 
let  him  go.  He  had  not  uttered  a  word,  but  it 
was  enough.  Every  man  of  them  went  out  ready 
to  do  and  to  dare  and  to  die,  if  need  be,  next  day 
for  Napoleon.  His  shadow  had  fallen  upon  them, 
healing  them  of  any  lurking  remnant  of  cowardice 
or  any  lingering  uncertainty  touching  the  victory 
they  were  to  win.  They  felt  as  if  they  were  all 
Napoleons  and  that  their  stars  were  in  the 
ascendant. 

In  business  and  in  politics,  in  the  work  of  edu- 
cation and  in  the  work  of  religion,  it  is  person- 
ality that  counts.  And  where  a  given  personality 
is  stimulating,  wholesome,  reliable,  it  gets  results 
like  those  which  the  people  of  that  early  day  were 
ready  to  ascribe  to  Peter's  shadow. 

The  finest  form  of  influence  is  also  uncon- 
scious. Peter  was  not  passing  down  street  that 
day  for  the  sake  of  casting  a  shadow.  He  had 
not  even  noticed  that  his  shadow  was  there.  He 
was  going  straight  along  about  his  business  on 
some  errand  of  usefulness,  and  the  shadow  came 
of  itself.  That  was  the  beauty  of  it  in  the  eyes  of 
those  who  believed  in  him.  If  he  had  been  think- 
ing about  it,  if  he  had  been  saying  to  himself, 
"What  a  handsome  shadow  I  am  casting  on  the 

87 


Yale  Talks 

lawn!  What  a  wonderful  man  I  must  be  to  have 
them  carry  out  the  sick  and  lay  them  along  my 
path,"  they  would  not  have  done  it. 

People  never  lay  their  needs  along  the  path  of 
a  self-conscious  prig  as  he  struts  along.  The  man 
who  poses  as  if  he  were  forever  having  his  picture 
taken  will  have  his  shadow  all  to  himself — no  one 
will  want  it.  And  those  silly,  affected  people  who 
are  always  thinking  about  the  impression  they  are 
making  and  are  trying  to  appear  as  something 
other  than  what  they  are  become  as  uninteresting 
and  as  useless  as  last  year's  birds'  nests.  It  is  the 
unconsciousness  of  a  life  that  loses  all  thought  of 
itself  in  the  service  it  seeks  to  render  which  gives 
it  power. 

There  are  forms  of  influence  which  are  deliber- 
ate and  intentional.  The  man  means  to  do  it — 
he  is  making  a  business  of  it.  When  some  one 
seeks  to  influence  you  by  instruction  or  persua- 
sion, by  the  force  of  his  argument,  or  by  moral 
appeal,  he  is  committing  influence  upon  you  in  the 
first  degree. 

But  that  is  only  a  small  part  of  a  man's  influ- 
ence upon  the  lives  of  others,  and  not  the  most 
important  part.  He  accomplishes  more  when  he 
does  it  unawares.  More  people  are  run  over  by 
street  cars  when  they  are  watching  a  street  car 
moving  in  the  opposite  direction  than  in  any  other 
way.  It  gets  them  when  they  are  not  looking. 
People  are  sensitive  about  being  influenced.    They 

88 


VI — Unconscious  Influence 

are  touchy  about  having  anyone  do  them  good,  if 
he  says  so  in  advance.  Those  people  who  are 
so  frightfully  in  earnest  that  they  are  always 
getting  after  you  hammer-and-tongs  for  your 
soul's  good  make  you  feel  as  if  you  would  like  to 
swear.  It  is  the  influence  which  goes  forth  from 
a  life  unawares  which  accomplishes  the  finest  re- 
sult. 

There  came  to  Harvard  University  a  famous 
preacher  who  caused  the  hearts  of  all  who  heard 
him  to  burn  within  them  as  he  opened  to  them  the 
Scriptures.  When  the  service  was  over  a  very 
academic  sort  of  professor  undertook  to  discuss 
the  minister's  sermon  with  him,  not  very  success- 
fully. "But  you  preach,  of  course,  to  do  good," 
the  man  said.  ''Heavens,  no!"  the  minister  re- 
plied, "God  forbid!"  His  answer  might  seem 
strange.  But  what  he  meant  was  this — ^he  tried 
to  utter  his  truth  clearly,  concisely,  cogently.  He 
tried  to  live  it  himself  so  that  he  might  certify  to 
its  reality  in  the  depths  of  his  own  soul.  Then  he 
stood  back  and  let  that  truth  go  forth  and  find 
lodgment,  if  it  might,  in  the  lives  of  men  to  accom- 
plish there  its  natural  result.  And  all  his  listeners 
had  rights  and  reserves  upon  which  he  would  not 
infringe.  His  method  was  sound.  "Let  your  light 
so  shine,"  the  IVIaster  said,  "that  men  may  glorify 
the  Father."  Just  let  it!  Be  sure  that  what  you 
have  in  you  is  light  and  not  darkness  and  then  it 

89 


Yale  Talks 

will  go  forth  of  itself  and  men  will  see  their  way 
about. 

We  read  here  in  the  Old  Testament  of  a  man 
who  had  been  on  the  mountain  top.  He  had  been 
moving  on  the  highest  level  of  thought  and  feeling 
he  had  ever  known.  He  had  been  twenty  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea  where  the 
people  of  his  day  were  paddling  about.  He  had 
seen  God  face  to  face  and  those  everlasting  prin- 
ciples of  right  and  wrong  which  underlie  all  human 
well-being.  And  when  he  came  down  the  moun- 
tainside from  that  august  experience  his  face 
shone  so  that  the  people  could  scarcely  look  at 
him.  The  radiance  of  his  countenance  frightened 
them.  "And  Moses  wist  not  that  his  face  shone" 
— that  was  the  secret  of  it.  If  he  had  been  think- 
ing about  it,  it  would  not  have  shone.  It  is  the 
unconscious  radiance  of  a  life  which  has  yielded 
itself  utterly  to  the  will  of  God  and  has  lost  all 
thought  of  itself  in  doing  its  work,  which  shows 
"the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land." 

"When  thou  doest  thine  alms  sound  not  a  trum- 
pet before  thee  in  the  streets."  When  you  send  a 
ton  of  coal  to  a  poor  family  do  not  hire  a  band  to 
go  along.  The  least  bit  of  showy  pride  in  one's 
generosity  robs  it  of  its  beauty.  Think  so  little 
of  yourself  when  you  are  doing  good  that  your 
right  hand  will  not  know  what  your  left  hand  is 
doing.  "And  when  thou  prayest,  be  not  as  the 
hypocrites.    They  love  to  pray  at  the  corners  of 

90 


VI — Unconscious  Influence 

the  streets  to  be  seen  of  men.  Verily  they  have 
their  reward."  They  pray  to  be  seen  of  men  and 
they  are  seen  of  men.  They  get  what  they  prayed 
for  and  there  is  nothing  more  coming  to  them.  The 
men.  who  pray  or  give  or  live  to  be  seen  of  men 
do  it  all  for  small  pay. 

One  night  at  the  college  where  I  studied  a 
senior  was  crossing  the  yard.  It  was  late  and  he 
had  spent  his  evening  in  a  wretched  debauch.  He 
was  feeling  spotted  and  ashamed.  As  he  crossed 
the  campus  he  looked  up  and  saw  the  oldest  and 
best  beloved  member  of  the  faculty  sitting  at  his 
desk  busily  writing  under  the  glow  of  an  evening 
lamp.  The  young  fellow  knew  that  the  old  man 
was  at  work  upon  something  which  he  believed 
would  be  useful  to  the  world.  And  the  contrast 
between  that  picture  and  the  way  he  had  spent 
his  own  evening  smote  him  to  the  heart.  Then 
and  there  he  turned  over  a  new,  clean  leaf  and 
began  to  write  upon  it  the  record  of  a  decent  life. 
The  old  professor  was  not  sitting  there  to  be 
looked  at;  he  knew  nothing  about  that  young  chap 
out  there  in  the  dark;  he  had  been  so  absorbed 
in  his  work  that  he  had  forgotten  to  pull  down  the 
shades.  It  was  the  simple  unconsciousness  of  his 
useful  action,  as  it  was  the  simple  unconscious- 
ness of  his  useful  life,  which  made  him  a  power 
for  good  on  that  campus. 

This  finer  form  of  influence  is  inevitable.  When 
Peter  walked  out  into  the  sunshine  that  day  tliere 

91 


Yale  Talks 

was  his  shadow  beside  him.  He  could  not  get 
away  from  it.  If  he  ran,  it  ran  with  him;  if  he 
slowed  down,  it  still  kept  step;  if  he  stood  stock 
still,  there  was  his  shadow,  sticking  closer  than  a 
brother.  He  might  have  said  as  Luther  said  when 
his  turn  came,  "Here  I  stand  casting  a  certain 
shadow!     God  help  me,  I  cannot  otherwise!" 

Now  influence  of  the  more  potent  type  is  just 
like  that.  You  are  always  doing  it  whether  you 
will  or  not.  Men  are  warmed  or  chilled,  they  are 
lifted  or  lowered,  they  are  made  more  responsive 
to  the  finer  things  of  life  or  less,  by  the  steady 
impact  of  your  own  life  upon  theirs.  Whether 
they  get  hurt  or  help  is  determined  by  what  you 
are.    But  something  they  must  get. 

The  number  of  those  who  deliberately  set  out  to 
injure  their  fellows  is  small.  We  have  to  reckon 
with  them  as  we  do  with  rattlesnakes  and  hyenas, 
but  fortunately  they  are  scarce.  There  is  a  multi- 
tude which  no  man  can  number  of  people  who  are 
steadily  injuring  others  by  being  as  they  are. 
They  are  making  it  easier  and  more  natural  for 
others  to  be  narrow  and  mean,  to  be  selfish  and 
uncharitable,  to  be  unbelieving  and  irreligious. 
They  are  putting  the  weight  of  whatever  influence 
they  possess  in  the  wrong  pan,  helping  to  tip  the 
scales  toward  a  less  worthy  mode  of  life. 

Here  is  a  group  of  college  fellows  or  a  congrega- 
tion of  men  and  women  or  a  whole  community  of 
people!     The  Lord  of  the  Vineyard  desires  the 

92 


VI — Unconscious  Influence 

fine  fruits  of  the  Spirit  from  that  entire  group. 
The  yield  of  fruit  will  depend  upon  the  composite 
and  prevailing  moral  temperature.  And  every 
life  in  the  group  helps  to  raise  or  to  lower  that 
temperature.  The  lives  which  are  gross,  sordid, 
material,  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  ill  will  and 
devoid  of  aspiration  are  steadily  sending  the  mer- 
cury down.  The  lives  possessed  by  reverence, 
trust  and  kindliness  are  sending  the  mercury  up. 
The  honor  of  the  better  result  in  the  yield  of  spirit- 
ual fruit  in  that  particular  situation  belongs  to 
these  lives  and  to  the  God  they  serve. 

The  Master  was  passing  one  day  through  a 
crowded  street.  It  was  like  Broadway  at  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  people  were  jostling 
Him  on  every  side  and  He  could  scarcely  move 
along.  There  came  up  behind  Him  a  poor  woman 
who  had  been  sick  for  twelve  years.  She  had 
spent  all  she  had  on  doctors  and  was  no  better. 
She  thought  if  she  could  only  touch  the  hem  of 
His  garment  she  would  get  well.  It  was  a  blind 
sort  of  faith,  the  idea  that  she  could  be  healed  on 
the  sly,  without  His  knowing  anything  about  it, 
by  simply  touching  His  clothes.  It  was  blind, 
but  it  was  real.  And  because  her  touch  was  the 
touch  of  faith  and  because  He  was  robed  in  help- 
fulness the  woman  was  made  whole.  Virtue  went 
forth  from  Him  inevitably  at  the  touch  of  honest 
faith.  In  like  manner  men  are  rubbing  off  some- 
thing from  us  in  all  these  chance  contacts  of  life. 

93 


Yale  Talks 

And  it  is  possible  for  any  life  to  be  so  dynamic 
in  its  sense  of  fellowship  with  God  and  in  its 
kindly  consideration  of  others  that  what  is  rubbed 
off  will  do  good.  We  are  meant  to  be  branches 
of  the  True  Vine  handing  on  the  help  that  was  in 
Him. 

It  is  only  now  and  then  that  a  man  has  a  chance 
to  influence  deeply  another  life  by  direct  effort, 
but  these  doors  of  involuntary  communication 
stand  forever  open.  The  traffic  in  influence  be- 
tween life  and  life  is  like  the  traffic  between  the 
lungs  of  the  animal  world  and  the  emanations  of 
plant  life.  We  exhale  what  they  inhale.  We 
inhale  what  they  exhale.  The  carbon  dioxide 
which  we  give  off  they  take  up,  and  that  which 
they  give  off  is  for  our  good.  This  explains  why 
it  is  good  for  us  to  get  away  from  crowds  of  peo- 
ple into  the  woods.  The  same  sort  of  give  and 
take  goes  on  between  these  lives  of  ours.  The 
way  a  man  walks  down  street  with  a  strut  or 
swagger  or  with  the  natural  gait  of  a  true  man; 
the  tone  of  voice  he  uses  in  discussing  the  weather 
or  the  war;  the  look  he  wears  upon  his  face,  sym- 
pathetic or  otherwise;  the  very  atmosphere  he 
bears  with  him  of  kindliness  or  of  selfish  indiffer- 
ence— all  these  make  a  life  fragrant  or  repellent. 
They  determine  the  quality  of  that  impact  which 
everyone  makes  upon  the  lives  of  his  fellows. 

Two  college  men  had  returned  to  their  Alma 
Mater  to  celebrate  the  fortieth  anniversary  of 

94 


VI — Unconscious  Influence 

their  graduation.  They  were  going  about  the 
town  when  they  saw  one  of  their  former  profes- 
sors on  the  street.  He  was  an  old  man  now  and 
much  broken.  He  was  poorly  dressed,  for  his 
salary  had  been  small.  He  had  never  written  a 
great  book;  he  had  never  made  an  important 
scientific  discovery;  he  had  never  been  summoned 
to  Harvard  or  Yale  or  Princeton  to  receive  an 
honorary  degree;  he  had  never  entered  even  the 
suburbs  of  what  men  call  ''the  public  eye."  He 
had  spent  his  whole  life  teaching  Greek,  which 
was  almost  as  unpopular  then  as  it  is  now.  "What 
did  you  learn  from  the  old  chap  when  you  were 
here?"  one  of  these  graduates  asked  the  other, 
"I  learned  to  be  a  man,"  was  the  quick  reply,  "and 
I  shall  be  grateful  to  him  as  long  as  I  live."  He 
had  probably  forgotten  all  his  Greek  in  forty 
years,  but  the  imprint  of  that  man's  life  was  still 
there.  Happy  the  professor,  happy  the  individual 
anywhere  who  teaches  a  boy  to  be  a  man  and 
starts  him  on  a  career  of  honor!  It  is  a  work 
accomplished  mainly  by  the  unstudied  output  of 
a  man's  soul. 

When  the  Master  was  eating  the  Last  Supper 
with  His  disciples,  He  said  to  them,  "I  have  given 
you  something."  And  He  named  it.  It  was  not 
money — He  had  no  money  to  speak  of.  It  was 
not  an  appointment  to  high  office — it  did  not  lie 
in  His  power  to  set  men  on  the  right  hand  or  the 
left  hand  of  authority,  as  He  was  sometimes  asked 

95 


Yale  Talks 

to  do.  He  gave  them  something  of  more  worth 
than  all  that.  "I  have  given  you  an  example,"  He 
said,  "that  ye  should  do  as  I  have  done." 

And  when  those  men  looked  at  Him  they  knew 
that  He  had  given  them  the  best  gift  of  all.  In 
Him  the  word  of  right  living  was  made  flesh  and 
dwelt  among  them  full  of  grace  and  truth.  The 
language  of  religion  had  been  translated  into  terms 
of  life;  and  the  fact  that  it  had  been  done  became 
a  standing  pledge  that  something  like  that  could 
be  done  again  by  the  grace  of  Gk)d.  He  made 
goodness  winsome  and  compelling  in  its  power 
of  appeal,  so  that  wherever  He  is  lifted  up  He 
draws  men  to  Him.  May  grace  be  given  us  to 
make  our  lives  so  real  and  so  true  that  the  natural 
unstudied  output  of  each  life  shall  b^  a  power  for 
good! 


96 


VII 
The  Lessons  of  Failure 

HERE  was  a  boatload  of  men  who  were  cold 
and  hungry  and  cross,  for  they  had  been 
out  all  night  fishing  and  had  not  caught  anything. 
There  the  Master  saw  His  opportunity.  He  came 
to  them,  not  at  the  moment  of  some  splendid  suc- 
cess, but  in  the  hour  of  failure.  He  reaches  out 
His  hand  to  many  a  life,  not  when  it  is  on  the 
crest  of  the  wave,  but  when  it  is  in  the  trough  of 
the  sea  and  liable  to  be  drowned.  Man's  extrem- 
ity is  God's  opportunity.  "When  I  am  weak,"  the 
Apostle  cried,  "then  am  I  made  strong"  with  a 
finer  form  of  strength.  And  that  is  what  I  want  to 
speak  to  you  about  this  morning.  The  Lessons  of 
Failure. 

The  men  in  the  boat  had  been  relying  on  their 
own  strength.  They  were  no  tender  feet,  picking 
their  way  daintily  around  the  Sea  of  Galilee  for 
the  first  time.  They  were  not  amateurs,  fishing 
as  a  kind  of  pastime  while  they  were  off  on  a  sum- 
mer vacation.  Fishing  was  their  trade;  it  brought 
them  their  bread  and  butter.  They  made  a  busi- 
ness of  it. 

97 


Yale  Talks 

And  they  had  wintered  and  summered  with  that 
old  lake.  They  had  fished  it  by  day  and  by  night 
and  in  all  weathers.  They  knew  every  cove  along 
its  shores  and  every  deep  hole  where  the  fish  might 
lie.  They  knew  all  the  best  places  to  fish,  for 
they  had  tried  them  out  a  hundred  times.  They 
knew  what  sort  of  sky  was  best  for  fishing,  and 
from  what  quarter  it  was  best  to  have  the  wind 
blow.  You  could  not  tell  them  anything  about 
fishing  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 

They  were  prepared  to  resent  it  when  this  man 
from  Nazareth,  which  was  a  small  town  ten  miles 
back  in  the  country,  began  to  make  suggestions 
to  them  about  fishing.  Peter  said  to  him,  "We 
have  toiled  all  night  and  have  taken  nothing." 
What  good  would  it  do  to  "launch  out  into  the 
deep"  and  let  down  their  nets  again!  They  were 
cold,  hungry,  and  cross,  as  men  always  are  when 
they  have  fished  all  night  without  results,  and 
they  did*  not  want  any  advice  from  any  quarter 
whatsoever. 

How  modern  it  all  is!  You  will  hear  men  today 
scorning  the  approach  of  those  finer  methods  and 
ideals  which  come  from  Nazareth.  "Business  is 
business,"  they  say — ^"You  cannot  mix  religion 
with  business."  Human  nature  is  selfish,  and  you 
cannot  change  human  nature  by  an  Act  of  Con- 
gress, or  by  a  few  intellectual  flourishes.  Do  unto 
others  as  they  would  like  to  do  unto  you,  and  do 
it  first.    If  you  do  not  look  out  for  Number  One, 

98 


yil — Lessons  of  Failure 

who  will?  We  know  all  about  it;  we  have  fished 
these  waters  by  day  and  by  night.  We  have  been 
in  business  for  forty  years,  and  we  have  fought 
these  labor  unions  and  these  uplift  people  to  a 
finish  over  and  over  again. 

These  men  are  dead  sure — dead  is  exactly  the 
right  word  in  that  connection — that  the  Man  of 
Nazareth  cannot  tell  them  anything  about  the 
way  to  carry  on  their  business.  "Launch  out  into 
the  deep,"  indeed — they  think  that  they  know 
more  about  the  deep  than  He  does. 

Some  of  them  will  never  learn  any  better  until 
they  have  attended  the  school  of  failure.  So  long 
as  they  win  out  with  their  gospel  of  materialism 
they  will  believe  that  the  race  is  to  the  swift,  the 
battle  to  the  strong,  and  victory  for  the  man  with 
the  longest  purse.  They  will  remain  as  blind  as 
Peter  was  that  day  at  Capernaum.  Until  they 
have  come  through  some  long  hard  year  of  effort 
with  empty  boats  and  with  empty  hearts,  they  will 
not  be  ready  to  welcome  the  One  from  Nazareth, 
who  shows  men  where  to  fish  and  how  to  live. 

The  Sea  of  Galilee  is  a  small  affair — it  is  only 
thirteen  miles  long,  and  you  can  see  across  it 
from  shore  to  shore.  But  the  sea  of  life  reaches 
from  Pole  to  Pole  and  far  beyond.  Its  depth  no 
man  knows.  And  all  along  the  shores  of  that 
vaster  sea  men  and  women  are  being  beaten. 
They  toil  the  whole  year  through  and  take  nothing 
worthy  of  their  effort.    They  go  forth  relying  on 

99 


Yale  Talks 

their  own  wisdom,  but  the  sea  of  life  proves  too 
much  for  them. 

There  was  a  man  in  the  Scriptures  who  was 
down  and  out  and  did  not  know  it.  He  did  not 
know  it  because  he  was  well  dressed  and  had  just 
eaten  a  good  dinner.  He  said  in  haughty  fashion, 
"I  am  rich  and  increased  with  goods  and  have 
need  of  nothing."  Then  the  Spirit  of  God  turned 
him  inside  out  and  showed  him  how  he  looked 
to  those  who  had  eyes  to  see.  He  was  made  to 
realize  that  he  was  "wretched  and  miserable,  blind 
and  naked."  And  in  that  hour  of  moral  humilia- 
tion he  was  told  to  buy  gold  tried  in  the  fire  that 
he  might  be  rich,  and  the  white  raiment  of  a  new 
life  that  he  might  be  clothed,  and  to  anoint  his 
eyes  that  he  might  see.  The  man  who  is  tempted 
to  settle  down  in  lazy  satisfaction  with  some 
meagre  bit  of  success  needs  the  sobering  influence 
of  failure  to  enable  him  to  get  his  bearings. 

In  that  hour  of  failure  these  men  in  the  boat 
learned  to  walk  by  faith.  The  Master  said, 
"Launch  out  into  the  deep  and  let  down  your 
nets."  They  felt  sure  that  it  would  be  of  no  use. 
It  was  not  the  time  of  day  to  fish — night  was  the 
time  to  fish,  and  they  had  fished  all  night  without 
catching  anything.  What  could  they  expect  in  the 
broad  glare  of  the  sun!  And  they  had  fished  in 
all  the  best  places  in  the  lake — it  would  be  a 
waste  of  effort  to  try  again  in  that  spot  to  which 
He  was  pointing. 

100 


VII — Lessons  of  Failure 

It  had  everything  against  it — everything  but 
His  word.  He  asked  them  to  do  it,  and  as  much 
to  please  Him  as  anything  else  they  took  up  the 
same  old  net  and  let  it  down  out  of  the  same 
old  boat  into  the  same  old  sea  where  they  had 
failed.  And  now  they  caught  so  many  fish  that 
they  could  scarcely  land  them — they  all  but  broke 
their  nets.  They  were  taking  their  first  steps  in 
learning  to  walk  by  faith. 

We  have  tried  and  failed;  nevertheless  at  Thy 
word  we  will  try  again.  That  is  the  method 
whereby  the  most  satisfying  successses  in  life  are 
won.  Where  the  exercise  of  your  own  judgment 
in  putting  forth  your  strength  has  left  you  with 
an  empty  boat  and  an  empty  heart,  try  it  again 
in  His  way.  Launch  out  and  let  down  your  net  for 
a  draft  of  something  which  you  have  not  found 
as  yet.  It  is  there,  and  He  knows  that  it  is  there, 
and  He  knows  that  you  need  it  beyond  anything 
else.  And  all  your  shrewd  sayings  about  "Busi- 
ness is  business"  will  not  fill  your  nets  nor  fill 
your  life  with  peace  and  joy,  unless  you  learn  to 
use  your  strength  at  His  word. 

The  Germans  got  into  all  this  mess  because 
they  knew  it  all.  They  brought  upon  themselves 
this  frightful  national  disaster;  they  have  lost  all 
chance  for  any  real  place  in  the  sun  for  the  next 
hundred  years;  they  have  plunged  themselves  into 
a  depth  of  moral  contempt  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole 
world  from  which  they  may  not  emerge  for  cen- 

lOI 


Yale  Talks 

turies,  because  they  were  so  cocksure.  No  one 
could  tell  them  anything  about  "might  and  effi- 
ciency," They  knew  where  to  fish  and  how  to 
live.  They  had  "the  will  to  power"  and  they 
would  promptly  fill  their  boats  with  the  best  there 
was  in  all  the  seven  seas. 

Now  look  at  the  results  of  their  philosophy  of 
life.  They  have  toiled  for  thirty  years  in  prepara- 
tion for  "The  Day,"  and  they  find  themselves 
with  empty  boats  or  with  no  boats  at  all,  with  an 
empty  treasury  and  an  empty  soul.  And  their 
sorest  need  today  is  not  for  men  or  for  money, 
for  munitions  or  for  mines — it  is  to  learn  the  mean- 
ing of  this  statement,  "Not  by  might  nor  by  power, 
but  by  ]\Iy  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts,"  do 
men  gain  their  real  success. 

You  may  find  yourselves  in  some  situation 
where  it  is  "experience  versus  faith."  It  was  so 
with  this  boatload  of  men.  When  they  made  their 
first  venture,  they  were  relying  upon  their  own 
skill  and  experience  as  fishermen,  upon  their 
knowledge  of  the  sea,  and  upon  the  strength  of 
their  right  arms.  They  were  as  confident  as  the 
Kaiser  was  in  19 14,  yet  they  came  back  with  an 
empty  boat. 

When  they  made  their  second  venture,  they  had 
nothing  but  the  sense  of  humility  consequent  upon 
their  failure  and  the  spirit  of  obedience  to  the 
Master's  word — and  this  time  they  came  back 
with  a  boatload  of  fish.    "At  Thy  word  we  will!" 

102 


VII — Lessons  of  Failure 

The  plain  straight  act  of  obedience  to  His  will  was 
of  more  worth  than  all  their  strength  and  skill. 

"He  that  heareth  these  sayings  of  mine  and 
doeth  them,  I  will  liken  unto  a  wise  man."  Human 
judgment  walks  by  sight  and  because  its  eyes  are 
holden,  it  brings  up  many  a  time  in  the  ditch. 
The  spirit  of  obedient  trust  walks  by  faith,  and 
because  it  walks  with  Him  it  walks  with  sure 
tread  in  the  way  that  goeth  upward. 

The  Man  from  Nazareth  showed  them  that  day 
that  He  knew  something  about  fishing.  He  knows 
something  about  farming  and  about  business.  He 
knows  something  about  politics  and  about  the 
affairs  of  nations.  His  word  of  counsel  and  His 
high  command  are  the  best  assets  to  be  had  in  any 
of  these  great  interests.  He  knows  the  sea  of  life 
— He  has  sailed  it  in  all  weathers,  tempted  and 
tested  at  all  points  like  as  we  are.  He  knows  the 
deep  places  where  the  rich  values  in  human  experi- 
ence are  to  be  taken.  He  knows  how  to  fill  men's 
hearts  with  that  which  is  life  indeed.  You  can 
afford  to  stake  your  all  upon  obedience  to  His 
high  command. 

If  you  want  a  fine  word  to  inscribe  on  the  flag 
which  flies  from  your  masthead  as  you  sail  the 
sea  of  life,  take  this  one — "At  Thy  word,  I  will." 
When  you  take  that  line  you  are  not  leaning  upon 
your  own  understanding,  you  are  committing  your 
way  unto  the  Lord  that  He  may  direct  your  paths. 
You  are  not  depending  upon  your  own  unaided 

103 


Yale  Talks 

strength,  you  are  conscious  that  underneath  and 
around  you  are  His  everlasting  arms  which  will 
not  let  you  fall.  You  are  saying  what  the  Master 
said  in  that  hour  when  the  shadow  of  the  Cross 
was  falling  upon  His  pathway  and  the  Roman 
soldiers  were  approaching  in  the  dark — "I  am 
not  alone,  the  Father  is  with  me."  With  that  fine 
purpose  in  command  as  you  sail  out,  your  ship 
will  not  go  upon  the  rocks,  nor  will  it  return  from 
its  voyage  empty.  It  will  come  back  laden  with 
the  precious  cargo  of  a  more  abundant  life. 

These  men  learned  their  lesson  by  trying  again 
at  the  very  place  where  they  had  failed.  They 
were  not  called  away  from  the  scene  of  their 
defeat  to  some  other  lake  where  the  fishing  was 
better.  They  tried  again  with  the  same  old  net, 
in  the  same  old  boat,  and  in  the  same  old  sea.  But 
they  did  it  now  at  His  word  and  they  did  not  fail. 

Any  boat  will  do,  if  you  launch  it  at  His  com- 
mand. Any  sort  of  a  net  will  do,  if  you  let  it  down 
in  the  place  He  indicates.  Any  hour  of  the  day 
will  be  a  good  time  to  fish,  if  He  is  there  co-operat- 
ing with  you.  It  is  not  a  change  of  location  nor  a 
fresh  supply  of  tackle  which  most  men  need  for 
a  higher  success,  but  a  change  of  heart. 

The  place  for  any  man  to  get  up  is  where  he  fell 
down.  There  was  Zaccheus,  the  richest  man  in 
Jericho.  He  was  little  in  stature,  and  little  in 
every  other  way.  His  two  most  glaring  faults 
as  we  gather  from  the  context  were  these,  he  was 

104 


VII — Lessons  of  Failure 

dishonest  and  he  was  stingy.  These  qualities  had 
helped  to  make  him  the  richest  man  in  town. 

When  the  Master  sat  at  meat  with  him,  reveal- 
ing him  to  himself,  Zaccheus  saw  the  door  by 
which  salvation  must  come  to  his  house.  "Lord," 
he  said,  "if  I  have  taken  anything  from  any  man 
by  false  accusation,  I  will  restore  him  fourfold; 
and  the  half  of  my  goods  I  give  to  the  poor."  He 
had  been  dishonest  and  stingy  and  now  the  first 
two  words  he  utters  as  a  renewed  man  are  "re- 
store" and  "give."  He  begins  to  get  up  at  the  very 
point  where  he  had  fallen  down. 

We  are  not  surprised  when  bad  men  fail  and 
fools  go  down  in  defeat.  But  sometimes  good 
men  fail  and  wise  men  meet  with  the  sorest  kind 
of  disaster.  The  sea  of  life  has  been  too  much 
for  them  and  they  have  toiled  for  years  with  noth- 
ing to  show  for  it.  At  such  a  time  some  of  them 
feel  impelled  to  run  away  under  cover  of  darkness 
to  some  distant  spot  of  earth,  and  some  of  them 
in  cowardly  fashion  take  their  own  lives,  and  are 
seen  no  more  on  any  spot  of  earth. 

It  is  a  poor  use  to  make  of  such  an  experience. 
It  is  tragic  where  men  refuse  to  reap  the  harvest 
of  a  failure  bravely  met  and  nobly  borne.  "The 
foolish  make  of  their  failures  graves  wherein  they 
bury  all  their  highest  hopes.  The  wise  make  of 
their  failures  ladders  whereby  they  climb  toward 
Heaven."  Right  here  where  you  met  your  Water- 
loo is  the  place  for  you  to  show  that  "greater  is  he 


Yale  Talks 

that  ruleth  his  own  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a 
city." 

In  the  Yale  School  of  Religion  we  had  one  year 
a  vigorous  young  fellow  from  a  far  Western  state. 
He  was  earning  his  own  way,  and  he  was  an  excel- 
lent student  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  He  had 
an  older  brother  who  was  in  business  for  himself 
in  a  modest  way.  This  brother  was  unfortunate 
in  some  of  his  ventures,  and  presently  found  him- 
self with  two  thousand  dollars  more  liabilities 
than  assets,  and  certain  obligations  which  had  to 
be  met  without  delay.  He  saw  no  way  out  of  it, 
and  he  wrote  to  the  young  theolog  that  he  would 
have  to  make  an  assignment  and  take  refuge  in 
bankruptcy. 

Then  our  young  chap,  who  was  no  lath-and- 
plaster  saint,  but  quartered  oak,  wrote  back,  "We 
will  not  have  any  bankrupts  in  our  family — we 
are  not  that  sort.  Turn  over  all  you  have  to  your 
creditors,  and  then  you  assume  one  thousand  dol- 
lars of  that  indebtedness  and  work  it  off,  and  I 
will  take  care  of  the  other  thousand."  He  wrote 
shorthand  and  used  a  typewriter,  and  had  other 
strings  to  his  bow.  During  his  middle  year  in  the 
seminary  he  supported  himself,  carried  full  work 
with  high  grades  and  earned  on  the  side  eight 
hundred  dollars  of  that  indebtedness.  The  fol- 
lowing year  he  cleared  off  the  balance,  and  those 
two  brothers  faced  the  world  with  their  heads  up. 
He  was  preparing  for  the  work  of  the  Christian 

io6 


VII — Lessons  of  Failure 

ministry,  and  this  was  part  of  his  preparation. 
When  he  begins  to  preach  his  word  will  be  with 
power  and  his  life  will  give  light  to  men. 

"Stay  in  your  boat,"  the  Master  said  to  the  men 
who  had  toiled  all  night  and  failed.  Stay  right 
there  in  your  boat,  but  "launch  out  into  the  deep." 
You  have  been  fishing  too  close  to  shore.  You 
have  been  seeking  "safety  first"  rather  than  obe- 
dience to  His  high  command.  You  have  been 
fishing  in  shoal  water  catching  minnows  when  you 
might  have  been  doing  business  in  the  great  waters 
of  spiritual  experience.  Launch  out  again  upon 
the  very  same  lake,  but  in  that  deeper  water  let 
down  your  nets. 

Here  are  students  in  high  school  or  in  college 
fishing  along  the  edges  of  a  great  opportunity! 
They  have  a  splendid  chance,  but  they  are  allow- 
ing it  to  slip  by  without  utilizing  it.  All  the  mental 
and  moral  unfolding  they  are  getting  might  be 
compared  to  a  small  mess  of  sardines. 

You  long  to  say  to  them,  "Launch  out!"  Enter 
more  profoundly  into  the  meaning  and  power  of 
these  educational  facilities  which  are  at  hand! 
The  purpose  of  education  is  not  to  pack  a  lot  of 
undigested  information  into  a  man's  head,  or  to 
hang  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  key  on  his  watch  chain, 
or  to  write  certain  letters  after  his  name  indicating 
his  degrees.  All  this  is  mere  frill  and  ornament. 
The  purpose  of  education  is  to  make  each  man 
more  heavily  responsible  for  the  welfare  of  his 

107 


Yale  Talks 
own  community.  It  is  to  develop  in  each  one  a 
sense  of  personal  adequacy  to  those  demands 
which  society  has  a  right  to  make  upon  him,  and 
to  establish  him  in  the  spirit  of  readiness  to  make 
response  in  terms  of  useful,  competent  action. 
Launch  out  where  the  water  is  over  your  head, 
and  let  your  education  count  for  something  worth 
while. 

Here  are  men  and  women  in  mature  life,  who 
are  conscious  of  a  certain  mental  poverty!  They 
manage  to  look  over  a  great  deal  of  print  in  the 
course  of  each  week,  but  you  could  scarcely  say 
that  they  have  learned  to  read.  When  they  under- 
take to  apply  their  minds  to  the  more  serious, 
vital  interests  of  life,  they  lack  insight  and  grasp. 
When  they  think  they  do  not  seem  to  produce  any- 
thing. When  they  talk  there  is  a  certain  empti- 
ness and  futility  about  it  all. 

They,  too,  have  been  fishing  in  shoal  water. 
If  they  would  cast  overboard  the  principal  part 
of  that  cargo  of  "reading  matter"  which  was  never 
worth  printing  and  is  not  now  worth  reading,  and 
launch  out  into  some  real  concern  with  the  more 
vital  truths,  they  would  be  amazed  at  the  result. 
It  was  One  who  spake  as  never  man  spake  who 
gave  us  this  challenge:  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  mind 
and  with  all  thy  strength.  I  am  the  Truth,  and 
ye  shall  know  the  Truth,  and  the  Truth  shall 
make  you  free." 

io8 


VII — Lessons  of  Failure 

Here  are  multitudes  of  men  and  women  who 
are  paddling  to  and  fro  in  the  shoal  waters  of 
religious  interest!  They  are  not  infidels — they 
have  some  small  measure  of  religious  faith.  They 
are  not  indifferent  to  religion — they  attend  church 
on  pleasant  Sundays  when  nothing  better  offers. 
They  have  a  mild  desire  to  be  useful  in  their  day 
and  generation,  if  it  does  not  involve  too  much 
inconvenience.  Their  religious  life  is  not  insin- 
cere, but  it  is  superficial.  It  has  no  depth  of  con- 
viction; no  deep  underlying  sense  of  agreement 
with  the  will  of  God;  it  does  not  uncover  to  them 
the  deeper  sources  of  motive  and  stimulus.  They 
have  never  tried  to  think  their  way  through  to  a 
clear-cut,  definite,  religious  faith,  or  to  enter  into 
the  power  of  heartfelt  worship,  or  to  show  a  reso- 
lute effort  to  make  the  principles  of  the  Master 
the  guiding  principles  of  their  own  lives. 

You  long  to  say  to  them,  "Launch  out  into  the 
deep  upon  that  sea  where  you  have  failed.  Seek 
to  know  what  David  and  Isaiah,  what  Jesus  and 
Paul  had  to  say  about  life !  Lay  hold  upon  your 
full  share  of  that  inheritance,  undefiled,  uncor- 
ruptible, that  f adeth  not  away,  reserved  in  Heaven 
for  those  who  are  kept  by  the  power  of  God." 

Religion  is  not  a  mere  form  of  words  nor  a  mere 
set  of  observances  to  which  we  may  now  and  then 
turn  aside,  nor  a  mere  supply  of  small  change  in 
kindly  acts  of  service.    Religion  is  life,  life  abun- 

109 


Yale  Talks 

dant,  life  eternal,  life  without  limits  in  its  capacity 
for  advance. 

Twenty  odd  years  ago  I  was  making  the  trip 
through  Palestine  on  horseback  with  a  group  of 
friends.  We  camped  one  night  at  Capernaum 
there  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  We  had  Sea  of 
Galilee  fish  for  breakfast  next  morning.  When 
the  rest  of  the  party  started  on  that  day  on  the 
road  to  Damascus,  I  tarried  behind.  I  had  been 
riding  for  days  in  the  dust  and  heat,  and  the 
thought  of  a  swim  in  the  cool,  clear  water  of  that 
lake  was  most  attractive. 

I  tied  my  horse  to  a  sycamore  tree  something 
like  the  one  Zaccheus  used  in  Jericho.  Then  I 
made  ready  and  swam  out  into  the  lake.  I  thought 
of  Peter  and  James  and  John  fishing  in  those 
waters.  I  thought  of  the  Master  as  He  walked 
along  the  beach  and  called  to  them  in  the  hour 
of  their  discouragement.  And  it  all  seemed  so 
near  and  so  real!  I  swam  ashore  and  dressed, 
and  there  in  the  quiet  of  that  morning  hour,  with 
no  one  near  but  Him,  I  knelt  down  and  prayed 
that  I  might  become  a  more  competent  fisher  of 
men.  It  may  not  have  been  the  result  of  that 
single  prayer,  but  I  know  that  when  I  returned 
to  my  field  of  labor  in  this  country  there  was  in 
my  ministry  a  deeper  note. 

Here  we  are,  then,  setting  forth  in  our  little 
boats  upon  the  sea  of  hfe!  There  beneath  the 
surface,  hidden  from  our  eyes,  are  treasures  in- 

IIO 


VII — Lessons  of  Failure 

numerable.  They  are  meant  for  us.  It  is  not  His 
will  that  any  life  should  remain  empty  and  futile. 
I  care  not  how  many  times  you  may  have  prayed 
when  it  seemed  as  if  the  heavens  were  brass.  I 
care  not  how  many  times  the  burdens  of  duty 
laid  upon  you  have  been  so  heavy  as  to  make  you 
stagger.  I  care  not  how  many  times  you  have 
been  tempted  and  have  failed.  There  is  some- 
thing better  in  store  for  you  and  for  me  and  for 
all  hands. 

We  may  have  toiled  all  night,  all  the  year,  all 
through  a  decade,  without  taking  anything  which 
satisfied  our  desires.  Nevertheless,  at  His  word 
launch  out  where  the  water  is  deeper  and  the  issues 
greater  and  give  it  another  try.  If  you  make  your 
supreme  attempt  in  the  spirit  of  reverent  trust 
toward  Him,  with  a  feeling  of  intelligent  good  will 
toward  all  your  fellows,  and  with  an  honest  desire 
to  gain  that  which  will  be  best,  you  will  not  fail. 


Ill 


VIII 

The  Men  Who  Make  Excuse 

THERE  are  two  sorts  in  the  world,  the  men 
who  do  things  and  the  men  who  are  always 
ready  with  elaborate  explanations  as  to  why  they 
did  not  get  the  things  done.  The  world  frankly 
prefers  the  first  type — it  saves  its  highest  honors 
for  them  and  steadily  puts  the  other  sort  into  the 
discard.  It  is  for  every  one  to  make  up  his  mind 
as  early  as  possible  with  which  group  he  proposes 
to  travel. 

Here  is  a  short  story  told  by  the  Prince  of 
Story  Tellers,  who  "spake  many  things  in  para- 
bles," showing  the  folly  of  attempting  to  palm  off 
on  the  world  the  shoddy  of  excuses  in  place  of 
the  all-wool  of  genuine  achievement.  He  was 
being  entertained  in  the  home  of  plenty  and  this 
story  was  part  of  His  table  talk.  He  had  just 
indicated  in  a  telling  way  the  duty  of  the  strong 
to  the  weak.  "When  thou  makest  a  feast  do  not 
always  invite  your  rich  neighbors  who  will  natur- 
ally invite  you  again."  Do  not  always  invite 
those  who  already  have  more  than  enough  to  eat — 
invite  the  poor  who  have  less. 

The    situation    at    once    became    somewhat 

112 


VIII — Men  Who  Make  Excuse 

strained.  The  people  at  that  dinner  table  were 
not  accustomed  to  such  plain  talk.  There  came 
one  of  those  painful  silences  which  sometimes 
befall  a  dinner  party  when  something  too  real 
and  searching  has  been  said.  Then  one  of  those 
smiling  individuals  who  always  carry  a  good 
supply  of  small  change  and  pious  platitude  came 
to  the  relief  of  his  host..  He  fiUed  up  the  awkward 
gap  in  the  conversation  by  saying,  "Blessed  is  he 
that  shall  eat  bread  in  the  Kingdom  of  God." 

No  exception  can  be  taken  to  this  statement  as 
a  general  proposition.  But  the  Master  was  not 
accustomed  to  do  business  in  the  shallow  waters 
of  platitude.  He  at  once  launched  out  into  the 
deep  and  let  down  his  net  for  a  draught  of  some- 
thing vital.  He  told  them  a  most  unlikely  story 
of  a  rich  man  who  made  a  great  supper  and 
invited  many  guests.  The  invitations  were  all 
accepted  apparently,  but  when  the  time  came  the 
guests  began  to  beg  off  with  the  most  absurd  sort 
of  excuses.  This  is  not  the  way  of  the  world — it 
is  not  the  way  people  ordinarily  treat  invitations 
to  great  suppers  or  to  the  marriage  feast  of  the 
king's  son.  And  it  was  by  this  improbable  picture 
of  human  action  that  Christ  sought  to  show  the 
folly  of  those  who,  having  the  privilege  of  becom- 
ing the  chosen  guests  of  God,  refuse  the  call. 

The  invitation  was  an  act  of  grace.  Any 
honest  invitation  is  just  that.  The  man  who  in- 
vites you  to  dinner  does  not  have  to  do  it.    He 

"3 


Yale  Talks 

does  not  expect  to  get  anything  in  return  for  it — 
if  he  did  he  would  not  be  exercising  the  grace  of 
hospitality,  he  would  simply  be  doing  a  little 
business  with  you.  If  you  should  offer  at  the 
close  of  the  evening  to  pay  him  for  your  dinner 
he  would  be  amazed  and  grieved.  His  invitation 
springs  from  an  unselfish  interest  in  your  comfort 
and  pleasure.  "Come,"  he  says,  "for  all  things 
are  now  ready!  The  fatlings  are  killed  and  the 
dinner  is  on  tiie  table."  All  you  have  to  do  is  to 
enter  into  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  best  that  has 
been  prepared  for  your  coming. 

Here  the  invitation  to  the  supper  stands  as  a 
symbol  of  that  broad  summons  of  the  Father  in 
Heaven.  He  invites  us  all  at  this  hour  to  enter 
into  loving  fellowship  with  Him  and  enjoy  the 
best  that  He  can  provide.  Come,  for  all  things 
are  now  ready — all  things  that  belong  to  man's 
highest  estate,  to  the  full  realization  of  his  own 
powers,  and  to  the  rendering  of  that  service  which 
will  make  him  an  honored  and  useful  member  of 
society.  It  only  needs  the  personal  acceptance 
and  co-operation  of  each  individual.  And  the 
acceptance  of  that  invitation  through  the  dedica- 
tion of  one's  powers  to  the  highest  he  sees  con- 
stitutes the  very  essence  of  Christian  character. 
When  any  man  does  that  the  Giver  of  the  Feast 
begins  to  feed  him  with  the  Bread  from  above  and 
to  drink  with  him  His  own  wine  new  in  the  King- 
dom of  God. 

114 


VIII— Men  Who  Make  Excuse 

But  the  men  in  the  story  allowed  things  legiti- 
mate and  praiseworthy  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
their  supreme  loyalty.  "They  all  with  one  con- 
sent began  to  make  excuse."  The  first  man  said, 
"I  have  bought  a  piece  of  ground,  and  I  must  go 
and  see  it;  I  pray  thee  have  me  excused." 
Another  said,  'T  have  bought  five  yoke  of  oxen 
and  I  must  go  and  prove  them!  I  pray  thee  have 
me  excused."  And  a  third  said,  "I  have  married 
a  wife  and  therefore  I  cannot  come." 

Now,  none  of  these  interests  is  evil — they  are 
all  good.  It  is  highly  desirable  that  men  should 
own  land,  and  that  farmers  should  purchase 
oxen,  and  that  young  men  should  marry  wives 
and  be  devoted  to  them.  It  was  not  as  if  one  had 
said,  'T  am  planning  to  go  out  and  get  drunk 
that  night — I  pray  thee  have  me  excused!"  Or 
as  if  another  had  said,  "I  have  arranged  to  rob 
a  bank  in  the  next  town  that  night,  therefore  I 
cannot  come."  Or  as  if  a  third  had  said,  "I  am 
purposing  to  go  out  and  burn  the  buildings  of  my 
rival  in  business  that  night;  therefore  I  shall  not 
be  there."  It  was  not  a  series  of  crimes  which 
led  to  the  moral  failure  of  the  men  in  the  story — 
it  was  their  preoccupation  with  interests  entirely 
legitimate  which  crowded  out  that  which  was  of 
supreme  importance. 

Let  me  put  it  in  modern  terms!  Here,  in  any 
community  you  want  to  name,  are  people  who 
mean  sometime  to  be  noble,  high-minded  Chris- 
es 


Yale  Talks 

tians,  only  they  have  not  quite  gotten  around  to 
it  as  yet.  They  have  been  busy  with  a  number  of 
other  things,  the  movies,  the  newspapers,  the 
games  of  bridge  that  have  to  be  played.  Now 
these  side  issues  which  I  have  named  are  not 
evil.  The  movies  for  the  most  part  are  entirely 
innocent — the  only  thing  to  be  said  against  them 
is  that  they  are  so  deadly  dull  as  a  rule.  But  when 
young  people  fall  into  the  habit  of  going  once 
every  day  and  sometimes  twice  a  day  in  order  to 
see  all  the  reels  which  are  brought  to  town,  thus 
spending  a  vast  amount  of  time  in  a  cheap  and 
easy  form  of  diversion  where  all  that  is  required 
is  that  one  should  sit  and  look,  they  become  a 
menace  to  interests  more  vital. 

It  is  desirable  that  everyone  should  read  the 
newspapers  in  order  to  know  what  is  going  on; 
and  the  great  mass  of  that  which  is  printed  is  not 
morally  hurtful.  But  when  this  lighter  form  of 
intellectual  effort,  which  engages  only  the  surface 
of  one's  mind,  crowds  out  the  reading  of  books 
which  deal  with  matters  in  a  more  serious  and 
vital  way,  then  the  papers  become  a  nuisance. 
Sometime,  somewhere,  everyone  who  has  a  head 
on  his  shoulders  and  not  merely  a  place  to  wear 
his  hat  ought  to  learn  to  think.  The  hasty  skim- 
ming through  a  lot  of  newspapers  does  not  en- 
courage thinking.  And  the  game  at  cards  as  a 
means  of  relaxation  from  a  hard  day's  work  has 
its  place.    It  is  a  loss  where  people  fall  into  the 

ii6 


VIII— Men  Who  Make  Excuse 
way  of  spending  all  their  leisure  hours  in  counting 
black  and  red  spots.    In  every  such  case  the  less 
may  crowd  out  the  greater. 

Here  in  the  story  the  good  became  the  enemy  of 
the  best.  In  real  life  the  choice  as  a  rule  does  not 
lie  between  the  best  and  the  worst.  If  a  man  has 
sunk  to  that  level  where  he  considers  the  worst  as 
a  possible  option,  the  best  is  no  longer  within  his 
reach.  Men  are  constantly  choosing  between 
things  which  are  good  in  their  way  and  that  best 
line  of  effort  which  has  the  right  to  command 
one's  final  allegiance.  The  boy  in  school  who 
manages  to  "pass"— he  is  not  actually  sent  home 
in  disgrace — and  contents  himself  with  that, 
leaving  the  higher  levels  of  mental  and  spiritual 
efficiency  unreached;  the  mature  man  who  does 
something  which  "gets  by,"  as  he  says— it  may 
hit  the  doorposts  on  both  sides  but  it  squeezes 
through;  the  line  of  conduct  which  does  not  land 
a  man  in  the  police  court  or  in  open  scandal,  but 
never  gains  anything  worthy  to  be  called  char- 
acter— all  these  have  failed  by  allowing  the  good 
to  become  the  enemy  of  the  best. 

Here  in  the  Bible  was  a  soldier  who  in  the  midst 
of  a  great  battle  was  set  to  guard  an  important 
prisoner  who  had  been  captured.  That  was  his 
particular  business  in  connection  with  that 
battle.  But  when  the  king  came  the  prisoner  was 
gone,  and  all  the  soldier  had  to  say  for  himself 
was  this,  "As  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and 

117 


Yale  Talks 

there  he  was  gone."  There  were  a  dozen  different 
things  which  he  thought  he  might  do.  None  of 
them  were  evil  things — he  was  not  going  over  to 
the  enemy  or  showing  himself  a  traitor  to  his 
country,  but  somehow  in  giving  attention  to  these 
other  interests  the  supreme  thing  went  undone. 
As  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there  with  a 
little  of  this  and  a  little  of  that,  lo!  the  prisoner 
he  was  set  to  guard  escaped. 

The  young  man  in  a  military  camp  is  there  to 
be  trained  as  a  soldier — if  he  fails  in  that,  he 
fails.  The  young  man  in  college  is  there  to  gain 
that  mental  and  moral  unfolding  which  changes  a 
boy  into  a  man — if  he  fails  at  that  point  he  fails. 
The  boy  in  preparatory  school  is  there  for  that 
discipline  and  development  which  will  fit  him 
thoroughly  for  the  harder  duties  which  lie  ahead — 
if  he  gets  by  without  accomplishing  the  main 
purpose  of  those  years  he  goes  down  in  defeat. 

This  was  the  answer  Jesus  gave  to  that  pious 
humbug  who  uttered  his  platitude  about  the 
blessedness  of  eating  bread  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  He  said  to  those  men  who  sat  at  meat  with 
him,  "How  much  do  all  these  truths  about  religion 
mean  to  you?  Are  you  taking  your  religion 
seriously?  Is  it  anything  more  to  you  than  a 
form  of  words  on  your  lips  or  a  set  of  graceful 
observances  to  which  you  may  turn  aside?  Are 
you  willing  to  make  sacrifices  in  the  matter  of 
land  and  other  property  interests  or  in  the  enjoy- 

ii8 


VIII— Men  Who  Make  Excuse 

ment  of  your  home  comforts  in  order  to  serve 
God  in  His  Kingdom?  Unless  you  are  ready  to 
put  first  things  first  and  subordinate  the  lesser 
interests  to  the  demands  of  character  and  service, 
you  are  all  humbugs." 

The  way  of  advance  does  not  lie  through  the 
destruction  of  those  interests  but  in  their  con- 
secration. The  man  whose  life  is  ample  and 
varied  is  not  asked  to  destroy  his  advantages. 
The  one  who  has  five  talents  of  personal  ability 
has  five  times  the  capacity  for  usefulness  over 
the  man  of  one  talent  whose  life  is  meagre.  He 
had  best  not  throw  away  four-fifths  of  his  ability 
in  order  to  put  himself  on  an  equality  with  his 
less  fortunate  fellow.  He  had  best  devote  those 
talents  to  the  high  ends  they  are  meant  to  serve. 

In  the  long  run  the  way  of  renunciation  is  easier 
and  less  creditable  than  the  way  of  consecration. 
It  is  easier  for  a  full-blooded  man  to  starve 
himself  by  an  ascetic  mode  of  life  and  thus  avoid 
the  coarse  sins  of  the  flesh  than  for  him  to  remain 
full-blooded,  keeping  himself  fit  and  bringing  all 
those  splendid  powers  into  obedience  to  the  spirit 
of  Christ.  The  latter,  however,  is  the  harder  and 
holier  line  of  action. 

It  would  be  easier  for  many  a  rich  man  to  give 
away  all  of  his  money  to  the  poor  than  to  keep  it 
and  administer  it  in  a  thoroughly  Christian  way 
by  investing  it  in  enterprises  which  yield  him  a 
livelihood  and  furnish  many  other  people  the  same 

119 


Yale  Talks 

chance  to  earn  their  livings  in  honest  employ- 
ment. The  way  of  use  and  consecration,  however, 
is  a  finer  way  than  that  of  renunciation  and 
destruction. 

Here  is  a  man  who  builds  a  factory  and  con- 
ducts it  in  such  a  way  that  the  smoke  which 
pours  from  the  tall  chimney  is  a  black  flag  of 
piracy.  He  is  robbing  men  and  women  of  the 
better  wages  they  ought  to  have,  and  robbing  them 
of  their  manhood  and  their  womanhood  by  making 
the  conditions  of  their  toil  unjust  and  inhuman. 
He  may  make  shoes  or  guns  or  steam  engines,  but 
he  is  not  making  manhood  or  womanhood  for 
those  whose  lives  are  bound  up  with  his  own  in 
that  enterprise.  Here  is  another  man  who  builds 
a  factory  and  operates  it  in  such  a  way  that  the 
smoke  from  the  tall  chimney  is  a  pillar  of  cloud 
by  day,  guiding  all  those  other  lives  toward  the 
Land  of  Promise  in  the  spirit  of  good  will.  And 
this  consecration  of  his  means  to  good  ends 
becomes  the  harder  and  holier  mode  of  life. 

"Live  then,"  as  William  DeWitt  Hyde  of 
Bowdoin  used  to  say,  "in  the  active  voice  rather 
than  in  the  passive,  thinking  more  of  what  you 
can  do  than  of  what  may  happen  to  you.  Live  in 
the  indicative  mood  rather  than  the  subjunctive, 
concerned  with  facts  as  they  are  rather  than  as 
they  might  be.  Live  in  the  present  tense,  con- 
centrating upon  the  duty  at  hand  without  regret 
for  the  past  or  worry  for  the  future.    Live  in  the 

120 


VIII— Men  Who  Make  Excuse 

singular  number,  seeking  the  approval  of  your 
own  conscience  rather  than  popularity  with  the 
many.  Live  in  the  first  person,  criticizing  your- 
self rather  than  condemning  others."  And  inas- 
much as  you  must  have  some  verb  to  conjugate 
in  your  everyday  life  you  can  not  do  better  than 
to  take  the  one  we  used  both  in  Latin  and  in 
English — amo,  I  love.  I  live  in  the  spirit  of  good 
will  toward  God  and  men  in  the  use  I  make  of  all 
these  gifts  of  His  grace. 

The  man  who  bought  the  piece  of  ground  could 
have  postponed  his  visit  to  it  until  the  next  day — 
it  would  have  looked  all  the  more  beautiful  to  him 
had  he  first  discharged  his  duty  by  being  present 
at  the  feast  to  which  he  had  accepted  an  invita- 
tion. The  man  who  went  to  try  his  yoke  of  oxen 
might  have  hitched  them  to  his  cart  and  have 
driven  them  to  the  supper — it  was  before  the  days 
of  rapid  transit.  The  man  who  had  married  a 
wife  might  have  brought  her  with  him — if  she  was 
any  kind  of  a  wife  the  feast  would  have  been  all 
the  better  for  having  her  there.  In  every  case 
the  natural,  wholesome,  legitimate  interests  of 
anyone's  life  had  best  be  not  cut  out  nor  lopped 
off,  but  brought  in  as  part  of  the  total  service  to 
the  cause  of  human  well-being. 

When  these  men  refused  the  invitation  the 
opportunity  passed.  The  master  of  the  house, 
when  he  received  those  silly  excuses,  said  to  his 
servant,  "Go  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges 

121 


Yale  Talks 

and  bring  in  the  poor,  the  lame  and  the  blind." 
They  would  not  be  so  occupied  with  their  land, 
their  oxen  and  their  home  comforts  that  they 
would  be  unwilling  to  come.  "Let  my  house  be 
filled  with  guests  but  none  of  those  men  who  were 
bidden  shall  taste  of  my  supper."  The  feast 
went  on,  but  without  those  men  who  had  refused 
the  call.  The  door  of  opportunity  opens  but  it 
does  not  stand  forever  open — when  men  pass  by 
the  door  is  shut. 

Here  in  a  short  poem  the  author  puts  these 
words  on  the  lips  of  his  principal  speaker,  whom 
he  calls  Opportunity. 

"  Master  of  human  destinies  am  I, 
Both  fame  and  fortune  on  my  footsteps  wait, 
I  knock  unbidden  once  at  each  man's  gate. 
If  sleeping  wake,  if  feasting  rise 
Before  I  turn  away. 
It  is  the  hour  of  fate." 

The  scientific  men  tell  us  that  in  the  develop- 
ment of  every  unfolding  life  there  comes  a  time 
for  the  marshalling  of  cells  for  the  building  of 
certain  tissues  and  the  forming  of  certain  organs. 
If  the  work  is  not  done  at  that  time  it  can  never 
be  done  again  and  done  right.  If  that  period 
passes  without  the  proper  development  of  those 
organs  the  life  is  born  imperfect  or  deformed.  In 
the  case  of  a  human  life  there  may  come  a  surgical 

122 


VIII— Men  Who  Make  Excuse 

operation  to  correct  so  far  as  may  be  what  grew 
wrong  in  the  first  place.  But  the  organism  will 
never  have  the  strength  and  symmetry  it  was 
meant  to  have. 

"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men,"  morally 
as  well  as  physically,  "which  taken  at  the  flood 
leads  on  to  fortune.  Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of 
that  life  is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries." 
There  is  a  time  for  the  formation  of  Christian 
habits  of  thought,  Christian  modes  of  feeling, 
Christian  lines  of  action.  Do  it  then,  for  it  can 
never  be  done  so  well  again.  There  is  a  time  for 
the  cultivation  of  that  temper  and  disposition 
which  make  for  character  of  the  highest  sort. 
Seize  your  chance  with  both  hands  and  compel  it 
to  yield  the  best  it  was  set  to  bring.  It  is  the 
voice  of  Scripture  and  of  experience  and  of  God, 
which  says,  "Now  is  the  accepted  time,  now  is  the 
day  of  salvation."  Do  it  now,  for  tomorrow  may 
be  too  late. 

In  that  great  day  when  the  Son  of  man  gathers 
the  nations  before  Him  and  separates  them  as  a 
shepherd  divides  the  sheep  from  the  goats,  some 
people  will  be  standing  on  the  right  hand.  They 
will  be  possessed  of  Christian  character.  They 
saw  their  chance  and  made  the  most  of  it.  And 
they  will  hear  the  words,  "Come,  ye  blessed  of 
My  Father.  Inherit  the  Kingdom  prepared  for 
you  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  Ye  did  it 
unto  Me."     Other  men  will  be  standing  on  the 

123 


Yale  Talks 

left  hand  without  that  Christian  character  which 
might  have  been  theirs.  They  will  stand  there 
offering  their  excuses.  "Our  parents  were  so 
strict  with  us  when  we  were  children  that  we  were 
turned  against  religion.  We  were  made  to  go  to 
church  so  much  in  our  youth  that  when  we  grew 
up  we  hated  it.  We  met  some  church  members 
once  who  were  hypocrites" — as  if  there  were  no 
hypocrites  in  the  world  outside  of  the  church 
where  they  stand.  "If  we  had  understood  all  the 
mysteries  connected  with  religion,  we  might  have 
become  Christians" — as  if  no  one  could  ride  on 
a  trolley  car  until  he  understood  all  the  mysteries 
connected  with  electricity.  And  in  that  day 
neither  God  nor  man  will  feel  much  sympathy  for 
those  who  undertake  to  make  excuses  take  the 
place  of  results.  The  word  to  them  will  be,  "De- 
part, ye  did  it  not  to  Me." 

When  Lord  Kitchener  was  in  Egypt  one  of  his 
subordinates  came  to  him  to  explain  why  a  cer- 
tain order  given  the  day  before  had  not  been 
carried  out.  There  were  any  number  of  reasons, 
he  said,  why  the  thing  could  not  be  done. 
Kitchener  listened  for  three  minutes  and  then  cut 
him  short  by  saying,  "Your  reasons  are  excellent. 
In  fact,  I  think  they  are  about  the  best  reasons  I 
ever  heard.  Now  go  and  do  it  and  report  to  me 
tomorrow  morning  that  the  work  is  complete." 
When  the  sun  rose  next  day  the  thing  was  done. 
He  was  a  man  who  never  excused  himself  nor 

124 


VIII— Men  Who  Make  Excuse 

others  and  he  will  go  down  in  history  as  "Kitch- 
ener of  Khartoum,  the  man  who  did  things." 

"Be  ye,  therefore,  doers  of  the  Word  and  not 
hearers  only  deceiving  yourselves."  "Not  every- 
one that  saith  unto  Me,  'Lord,  Lord,'  shall  enter 
the  Kingdom,  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  My 
Father  who  is  in  Heaven."  "Him  that  over- 
cometh  I  will  make  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  My 
God  to  go  no  more  out.  And  I  will  write  upon  him 
the  nan;e  of  my  God  to  indicate  of  what  sort  of 
stuff  he  is  and  the  name  of  the  city  of  My  God 
to  indicate  where  he  is  to  dwell,  and  I  will  write 
upon  him  My  new  name." 


125 


IX 

The  Power  of  Sentiment 

HERE  was  a  full-grown  man  who  was  home- 
sick— he  was  homesick  for  the  joys  of  his 
youth!  He  was  a  man  of  affairs  who  had  written 
the  word  SUCCESS  over  against  his  name  in 
capital  letters.  He  was  the  king  of  his  country 
and  the  greatest  king  that  Israel  ever  had.  But 
here  at  the  close  of  a  long,  hot  day  he  was  thirsty 
and  he  found  himself  longing  for  a  drink  of  water 
from  the  old  well  on  his  father's  farm.  "O  for  a 
drink  of  water  from  the  well  in  Bethlehem  by  the 
gate."  He  had  played  around  that  well  as  a  boy. 
He  had  drunk  from  its  cool  depths  on  many  a 
sultry  afternoon.  Now  in  his  maturity  he  longs 
for  a  drink  of  water  which  would  taste  as  that 
water  tasted  when  he  was  a  boy. 

You  know  the  feeling.  You  may  have  wished 
that  the  coffee  this  morning  would  taste  as  it  did 
when  your  mother  made  it.  You  may  have  wished 
that  Christmas  and  the  circus  and  things  generally 
would  produce  in  you  once  more  the  old  thrills  of 
delight.  Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  water  and 
the  coffee,  Christmas  and  the  circus,  have  not 

126 


IX — Power  of  Sentiment 

changed  except  for  the  better.  But  you  have 
changed — you  and  David.  The  fresh,  unjaded 
appetite  of  the  boy  is  gone.  The  keen  zest  and 
reHsh  for  some  forms  of  experience  are  no  longer 
yours.  Your  sensibilities  have  been  blunted  by 
the  passing  years,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  a 
drink  of  water  from  the  well  no  longer  tastes  like 
the  nectar  of  the  gods. 

But  David's  longing  went  deeper  than  the  con- 
tents of  a  well.  The  water  was  only  an  outward 
and  physical  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual 
satisfaction  which  he  craved.  He  longed  for  the 
innocence  and  radiant  serenity  of  his  unstained 
youth.  He  wished  that  he  might  find  himself 
again  a  shepherd  boy  keeping  watch  over  his 
flock  and  singing,  "The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd,  I 
shall  not  want."  He  wished  that  he  could  feel 
again  the  joy  of  striking  down  that  Philistine 
giant  with  sling  and  stone  and  hear  again  the 
plaudits  of  the  soldiers.  He  wished  that  he  could 
see  himself  coming  up  again  from  the  sheepfold 
to  be  anointed  king  of  Israel.  In  those  great 
days  his  life  was  all  unstained  by  serious  wrong- 
doing. It  was  sound  and  clean — it  sang  as  the 
birds  sing  in  the  trees. 

Now  he  had  sinned  grievously  against  God  and 
man.  He  had  been  guilty  of  murder  and  adultery. 
He  had  a  load  upon  his  heart  which  even  the  divine 
mercy  had  not  removed.  You  can  feel  the  heart- 
ache in  those  words  which  fell  from  his  lips,  "O 

127 


Yale  Talks 

for  a  drink  of  experience  from  the  well  of  boyhood 
which  is  by  the  gate." 

As  one  of  our  own  poets  has  it, 

"  Break,  break,  break 
On  the  cold  gray  stones,  O  sea. 
And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me. 

"  Break,  break  break 
At  the  foot  of  thy  crags,  O  sea. 
But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  gone 
Will  never  come  back  to  me." 

He  was  homesick.  He  wished  that  he  could 
turn  back  the  files  of  time  and  live  over  again 
those  early  years.  He  would  certainly  avoid  the 
folly  and  the  wickedness  which  had  brought  him 
pain.  Half  aloud  and  half  to  himself,  he  says, 
"O  for  a  drink  of  water  from  the  well  in  Bethle- 
hem." Three  of  his  soldiers,  mighty  men  of  valor, 
heard  him,  and  then  the  rest  of  the  story  follows 
as  you  all  know  it.  Let  me  hold  it  up  before  you 
as  a  picture  which  sheds  light  upon  the  power  and 
value  of  wholesome  sentiment. 

The  three  mighty  men  did  a  brave  deed  because 
they  loved  their  king.  They  stole  out  that  night 
through  the  enemy's  lines,  taking  their  lives  in 
their  hands,  for  the  Philistines  would  have  killed 
them  on  the  spot  had  they  been  discovered.  They 
went  on  through  the  enemy's  country  under 
cover  of  darkness  until  they  reached  the  old  well 

128 


IX — Power  of  Sentiment 

in  Bethlehem.  They  drew  out  of  it  a  jug  of  water 
and  brought  it  back  by  the  same  perilous  route 
until  they  delivered  it  into  the  hands  of  the  king. 
They  ventured  everything  on  the  strength  of  a 
sentiment  which  they  cherished  toward  the  ruler 
of  their  country. 

It  was  not  a  very  sensible  thing  to  do  when  we 
come  to  think  of  it.  They  might  have  been  killed, 
and  the  lives  of  three  good  men  are  worth  more 
than  a  jug  of  water  from  any  well  on  earth.  "It 
showed  a  lack  of  common  sense,"  I  hear  some 
practical  man  saying  to  himself.  But  man  does  not 
live  by  common  sense  alone — if  he  tries  to  do  it 
he  dies  in  certain  areas  of  his  nature.  The  con- 
siderations of  prudence  may  point  to  a  certain 
conclusion  as  solid  and  verifiable  as  the  state- 
ments of  the  multiplication  table  and  as  power- 
less to  move  the  heart  to  its  higher  levels  of  feel- 
ing and  purpose.  The  finger  of  expediency  may 
indicate  a  certain  line  of  action  as  clear  and  plain 
as  the  North  Star  and  as  coldly  remote  from 
human  well-being.  We  are  hearts  as  well  as 
heads.  We  are  hearts  even  more  than  we  are 
heads.  "Out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life," 
for  men  and  women  do  mostly  those  things  which 
they  feel  like  doing.  "With  the  heart  man  believ- 
eth  unto  righteousness,"  and  the  man  who  roots 
out  all  sentiment  from  his  life  to  make  more  room 
for  the  chilly  dictates  of  expediency  has  made  a 
sorry  trade. 

129 


Yale  Talks 

"  The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes 
And  the  day  but  one; 
Yet  the  light  of  the  whole  world  dies 
When  the  sun  is  gone. 

"  The  mind  has  a  thousand  eyes 
And  the  heart  but  one; 
But  the  light  of  the  whole  life  dies 
When  love  is  done." 

Keep,  therefore,  thy  heart  with  all  diligence! 
Keep  it  filled  and  charged  with  tender  devotion 
and  joyous  enthusiasm,  with  gracious  longings 
and  high  resolves,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of 
life. 

When  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea, 
wise  men  came  from  the  East.  And  when  they 
found  Him  with  Mary,  His  Mother,  "they  opened 
their  treasures  and  presented  Him  gifts,  gold, 
frankincense  and  myrrh."  The  gold  was  all  very 
well — it  could  be  used  to  purchase  something  for 
a  family  so  poor  that  they  were  compelled  to 
sleep  in  a  stable.  But  the  frankincense  and 
myrrh  had  no  such  practical  value.  They  were 
the  offerings  of  sentiment  and  moral  imagination. 
They  belonged  to  the  poetry  rather  than  the  prose 
of  life. 

And  all  that  has  large  place  in  the  Christian 
scheme  of  things.  It  ranks  with  Mary's  alabaster 
box  of  perfume,  which  she  used  to  anoint  the  head 
and  feet  of  Christ.    The  commercial  instinct  of 

130 


IX — Power  of  Sentiment 

a  practical  man  who  did  not  turn  out  very  well 
was  offended  on  that  occasion.  He  said,  "It  might 
have  been  sold  for  so  much,"  naming  the  price, 
"and  the  money  given  to  the  poor."  Yes,  it  might 
have  been  sold,  but  neither  rich  nor  poor  live  by 
cash  alone.  They  live,  if  they  live  at  all,  by  all 
the  great  words  which  proceed  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God,  faith,  hope,  love,  sentiment,  devotion, 
enthusiasm.  The  Master  defended  the  woman's 
action — "She  hath  wrought  a  beautiful  work  on 
Me."  The  beautiful  work  as  an  expression  of 
wholesome  sentiment  has  large  place  in  the  de- 
velopment of  character. 

Here  in  this  broad  land  fifty  odd  years  ago  we 
had  a  civil  war.  A  million  men  from  the  North 
went  down  to  fight  against  another  million  men 
more  or  less  in  the  South,  And  the  men  from  the 
North  fought  on  until  they  had  won  a  notable 
victory.  What  made  them  do  it?  What  kept 
them  at  it  during  those  four  terrible  years?  It 
was  not  a  pleasant  nor  a  profitable  thing  to  do, 
but  they  left  their  farms  and  their  factories,  their 
mills  and  their  mines,  their  homes  and  their 
families,  and  went  down  South  to  be  shot  at. 
They  received  "$14  a  month  and  hard-tack,"  yet 
they  turned  their  backs  on  all  that  they  held  dear 
and  went  down  cheerily  to  hardship  and  danger, 
to  disease  and  death. 

It  was  just  a  bit  of  sentiment  on  their  part. 
They  believed  in  the  integrity  of  this  country  and 

131 


Yale  Talks 

they  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  having  it  rent 
in  twain.  They  loved  the  flag,  which  is  only  a 
piece  of  bunting  to  a  man  without  sentiment,  and 
they  were  set  upon  keeping  all  those  stars  together 
in  one  common  field  of  blue.  And  moved  by  these 
sentiments  they  fought  on  under  the  leadership 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant  until 
the  Union  was  preserved  and  the  slaves  were 
freed.  The  finest  chapters  in  the  moral  history  of 
the  race  have  been  written  by  men  who  moved 
out  in  the  strong  grip  of  some  noble  sentiment. 

You  may  go  still  further.  Here  is  the  final  force, 
the  cardinal  fact  in  the  moral  universe,  "God  so 
loved  the  world  that  He  gave  his  only  begotten 
Son."  He  loved  the  world  though  it  was  unworthy 
of  his  love.  He  loved  us  while  we  were  yet 
sinners.  He  loved  us  not  because  we  deserved  it, 
but  because  we  needed  it.  His  own  knowledge 
told  Him  that  in  many  instances  His  love  would 
be  spurned.  But  He  loved  until  He  gave.  And 
that  unstudied,  undeserved  affection  which  a 
father  feels  for  his  children,  even  though  they 
have  been  doing  wrong,  is  the  driving  force  be- 
hind this  whole  redemptive  process  which  is  at 
last  to  save  men  from  the  guilt  and  power  of  their 
sins.  The  greatest  thing  in  the  world  is  love  and 
love  in  the  last  analysis  is  a  sentiment  of  intelli- 
gent good  will. 

The  three  mighty  men  broke  through  the  host 
of  the  Philistines  and  brought  David  a  drink  of 

132 


IX — Power  of  Sentiment 

water  from  the  old  well.  You  could  not  have 
hired  them  to  do  it.  They  would  not  have  im- 
periled their  Uves  in  that  fashion  for  a  bit  of  pay. 
The  choicest  things  in  life  are  never  purchased — 
a  woman's  kiss  of  affection,  the  fine,  uncalculating 
friendship  which  one  man  cherishes  for  another, 
the  devoted  self-sacrifice  of  a  mother,  the  life- 
blood  of  a  patriot  poured  out  for  his  country — 
these  great  values  in  life  are  never  bought  and 
sold  as  if  they  were  meat  and  potatoes.  They 
are  freely  given  away  by  the  generous  souls  who 
have  them  to  offer. 

We  cannot  allow  our  ministry  to  the  poor  to 
become  merely  practical  and  utilitarian  without 
degrading  it.  The  poor  people  are  not  mere  backs 
and  bellies  to  be  clothed  and  filled.  They,  too, 
are  minds  and  hearts.  They  have  sensibilities 
and  aspirations  which  crave  their  satisfaction  at 
the  hands  of  kindly  intelligent  interest.  The 
social  worker  may  read  the  "Survey"  regularly 
and  have  at  his  tongue's  end  all  the  latest  words 
of  scientific  charity,  but  if  he  has  never  sensed 
the  fragrance  of  Mary's  alabaster  box  he  is 
grossly  incompetent  for  his  task.  The  finer  senti- 
ments which  have  their  place  in  the  lives  of  rich 
and  poor  alike  are  more  precious  than  rubies  or 
diamonds. 

We  have  all  read  "The  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade,"  and  some  of  us  declaimed  it  in  the  days 
of  our  youth.     "It  is  a  brave  description  of  a 

133 


Yale  Talks 

brave  ride,"  as  Myron  Reed  once  said.  The 
colonel  of  the  fated  regiment  at  Balaklava  re- 
ceived his  order,  gathered  up  his  bridle-rein  and 
swung  himself  into  the  saddle,  saying,  "Here  goes 
the  last  of  the  Cardigans  and  thirteen  thousand 
pounds  a  year ! "  When  a  young  man  is  the  eldest 
son  of  a  lord  and  has  an  income  of  sixty-five  thou- 
sand dollars  a  year  coming  to  him,  he  has  a  good 
deal  to  lose.  And  when  he  lays  it  all  down  for 
the  sake  of  a  forlorn  hope  simply  because  it 
belongs  to  his  military  duty,  he  is  a  good  deal  of 
a  soldier. 

"It  was  magnificent,"  someone  has  said,  "but 
it  was  not  war."  I  am  not  so  sure  about  that.  If 
we  could  reckon  up  all  the  moral  courage,  all  the 
devotion  to  an  ideal,  and  all  the  public  spirit 
kindled  by  the  action  of  those  six  hundred  men, 
it  might  seem  that  they  had  made  a  royal  invest- 
ment of  their  lives.  "Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why.  Theirs  but  to  do  and 
die,  Noble  six  hundred."  On  all  the  higher  levels 
of  action,  the  world  is  ruled  mainly  by  those  senti- 
ments which  rise  supreme  above  the  lesser  con- 
siderations. Keep,  therefore,  thy  heart  with  all 
diligence  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life! 

When  the  three  mighty  men  brought  the  jug  of 
water  to  David  he  would  not  drink  it.  Here  it 
was,  water  from  Bethlehem,  clear  and  cold  as  it 
was  in  the  days  when  he  saw  the  bucket  come  up 
dripping  from  the  bottom  of  the  well!      Here 

134 


IX — Power  of  Sentiment 

were  the  three  men  who  had  brought  it  standing 
by  to  witness  his  satisfaction,  their  own  faces 
flushed  with  the  joy  of  their  success  and  their 
hearts  beating  high  with  the  love  they  bore  him. 

But  David  would  not  touch  a  drop  of  it.  It 
would  have  choked  him.  He  poured  out  a  cup  of 
it  and  held  it  up  to  the  light.  It  had  become  in- 
vested with  a  new  kind  of  sacredness  in  his  eyes. 
It  had  become  like  the  blood-red  wine  of  the 
Sacrament.  It  was  too  precious  to  be  used  for 
any  private  gratification,  even  though  the  gratifi- 
cation might  be  as  innocent  as  the  slaking  of 
thirst  with  cold  water,  "Far  be  it  from  me,  O 
Lord!  Is  not  this  the  lifeblood  of  those  men 
who  went  in  jeopardy  of  their  lives! "  He  carried 
it  apart  and  poured  it  out  in  sacramental  fashion 
unto  the  Lord. 

Here  again  I  hear  some  practical  man  scoff! 
"Why  did  he  not  drink  it  after  the  three  men  had 
taken  all  that  trouble  to  get  it!  It  would  not  do 
the  Lord  any  good  to  pour  it  out  before  Him. 
He  might  have  given  those  men  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  him  drink  it." 

But  there  are  things  which  become  invested 
with  values  which  make  them  too  precious  to  be 
used  for  any  kind  of  physical  gratification.  In 
that  hour  the  soul  of  the  man  rises  above  all 
physical  needs.  His  capacity  for  worship  craves 
its  satisfaction  in  ways  which  the  materialist 
knows  not  of.     His  kinship  with   the  Eternal 

135 


Yale  Talks 

asserts  itself  and  he  is  intent  upon  strengthening 
that  bond  which  unites  his  soul  with  the  Soul  of 
the  Infinite. 

When  General  Grant  retired  from  the  presi- 
dency, he  made  his  celebrated  tour  around  the 
world.  He  was  honored  in  all  lands  and  was  re- 
ceived by  many  of  the  crbwned  heads.  When  he 
reached  Japan  he  went,  naturally,  to  the  city  of 
Nikko,  the  city  of  shrines,  and  the  burial  place  of 
the  two  great  Japanese  heroes,Iyeyasu  and  lye- 
mitsu.  There  at  Nikko  is  the  famous  red  lacquer 
bridge  across  the  river,  upon  which  no  man  has 
ever  walked  save  only  the  sacred  person  of  the 
Emperor. 

But  as  a  mark  of  honor  to  his  American  guest 
and  in  gratitude  for  the  friendship  he  had  en- 
joyed, the  Emperor  gave  direction  that  when 
General  Grant  visited  Nikko  the  sacred  bridge 
should  be  opened  and  that  he  should  be  allowed 
to  walk  across. 

Then  our  great  American  soldier  showed  that 
he,  too,  had  all  the  fine  qualities  of  an  uncrowned 
king.  He  expressed  his  deep  sense  of  apprecia- 
tion for  the  honor  the  Emperor  had  shown  him 
and  declined  to  cross  the  bridge,  so  that  the  sacred 
tradition  might  be  kept  inviolate.  It  was  only  a 
bit  of  sentiment  on  both  sides,  but  nobly  con- 
ceived and  nobly  expressed  it  served  to  strengthen 
the  bond  of  friendship  between  that  land  and  ours 
— a  friendship,  may  it  please  God,  which  must 

136 


IX — Power  of  Sentiment 
never  be  broken  by  the  careless  tongues  or  wicked 
hands  of  thoughtless  men!  Nations  as  well  as 
individuals  are  moved  to  those  lines  of  action 
which  write  the  noblest  pages  of  their  history  by 
the  sentiments  which  possess  the  heart. 

How  mighty  would  be  the  power  of  moral 
imagination  could  we  exercise  it  upon  many  of 
the  commodities  of  our  daily  life!  Here  is  a 
young  man  holding  in  his  hand  his  monthly  allow- 
ance of  spending  money!  He  is  blind  if  he  thinks 
that  the  value  of  that  money  can  be  stated  in 
dollars  and  cents.  Money  has  in  it  the  potentiali- 
ties of  life  or  of  death.  It  is  an  expression  of  Ufe. 
Into  the  creation  of  that  bit  of  value  toiling  men 
and  women  have  put  the  sweat  of  brow  or  of 
brain.  If  the  young  man  has  eyes  to  see,  he  will 
say  to  himself,  "Is  not  this  the  lifeblood  of  those 
toilers  who  gave  of  their  best  that  this  value  might 
be  created?  Far  be  it  from  me  to  use  it  care- 
lessly, ungratefully,  wickedly."  He  would  feel 
that  he  was  drinking  in  insolent  fashion  the  heart 
blood  of  those  toilers  if  he  used  a  dollar  of  it  in 
unworthy  indulgence. 

Here  is  a  woman  who  rustles  into  her  parlor  in 
all  the  elegance  of  her  silk  and  lace!  Would  God 
that  all  such  luxury  had  been  made  possible  by 
commercial  and  industrial  methods  which  Jesus 
Christ  would  approve.  In  many  cases  it  is  not  so. 
If  that  woman  could  see  the  tired  faces  and  broken 
bodies  of  girls  working  for  long  hours  in  factories, 

137 


Yale  Talks 

in  sweat  shops  or  in  huge  department  stores  where 
pay  is  sometimes  kept  down  that  profits  may  be 
kept  up,  she  would  hate  the  rustle  of  her  finery. 
She  would  say,  "Far  be  it  from  me,  O  Lord — is 
not  this  the  wornout  tissues  of  those  other  lives 
that  I  am  wearing  for  my  own  pleasure?"  She 
could  not  rest  until  she  was  doing  something 
to  bring  about  better  industrial  methods  and  a 
more  equitable  distribution  of  the  good  things  of 
life. 

Here  is  a  whole  family,  the  children  of  good 
fortune,  sitting  at  an  open-grate  fire  in  winter. 
If  they  could  see  in  that  glowing  coal  the  burned- 
out  vitality  and  stunted  growth  of  underpaid 
miners  who  went  in  jeopardy  of  their  lives  that 
we  might  have  coal  brought  to  us  from  the  bowels 
of  the  earth;  if  they  could  see  the  underpaid 
breaker  boys  at  the  mouth  of  the  pit,  their  hands 
torn  and  bleeding  as  they  pick  out  the  slate,  and 
their  lungs  blackened  by  the  grime  and  dust,  it 
would  be  impossible  for  them  to  sit  there  in  open 
indifference  to  the  lot  of  their  less  fortunate  fel- 
lows. There  would  be  developed  in  them  a  pas- 
sion for  social  justice  which  would  not  rest  until 
they  had  done  something  to  change  all  that. 

Let  me  apply  that  same  principle  to  another 
still  more  vital  interest!  What  is  it  that  keeps 
thousands  of  strong,  red-blooded  men  in  all  our 
cities  clean  and  straight?  The  considerations  of 
prudence  are  weak  when  measured  against  the 

138 


IX — Power  of  Sentiment 

surging  passions  of  youth.  The  fear  of  physical 
contagion  or  the  dread  of  social  disgrace  are 
utterly  inadequate  to  offset  the  temptations  which 
are  offered  in  every  great  city.  The  decent  man 
is  kept  decent  by  the  fact  that  he  is  too  chivalrous 
to  find  pleasure  in  the  degradation  of  a  woman's 
life.  The  banishment  of  a  daughter  from  her 
father's  house  or  the  wreck  of  a  woman's  life, 
who  ought  to  be  a  happy  wife  and  mother  in  her 
own  home  is  too  vile  for  his  countenance.  "Far 
be  it  from  me,  O  Lord,"  he  cries,  "Not  a  dollar 
of  my  money  nor  an  ounce  of  my  strength  shall  go 
to  the  maintenance  of  a  system  which  year  by  year 
sends  a  multitude  of  misguided  girls  down  a  swift, 
short,  sharp  descent  into  physical  and  moral  hell." 
Find  pleasure  in  that — it  would  be  like  drinking 
the  lifeblood  of  a  fellow  mortal,  and  a  woman 
at  that,  for  one's  physical  gratification!  He 
scorns  it,  as  every  true  man  must. 

Teach  that  to  your  boys  as  they  grow  up. 
Teach  it  to  yourself.  The  great  safeguard  of 
manly  honor  and  of  womanly  purity  is  not  to  be 
found  in  statutes  nor  in  policemen.  It  is  not  to 
be  found  in  the  frightful  charts  compiled  by  medi- 
cal men  nor  in  the  statistics  prepared  by  eugenic 
societies.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  development 
of  that  fine  spirit  of  chivalry  which  David  showed 
three  thousand  years  ago  when  he  refused  to  slake 
his  thirst  on  water  which  represented  the  lifeblood 
of  a  fellow  being.    The  very  basis  of  morality  is 

139 


Yale  Talks 

to  be  found  in  that  instinctive  respect  which  every 
right-minded  man  feels  for  the  personality  of 
another.  No  man  is  a  good  man  who  lacks  that, 
and  every  man  who  has  it  refuses  to  purchase 
his  pleasure  or  his  profit  at  the  cost  of  the  degrada- 
tion of  any  human  soul. 

Here  then  is  my  story,  and  it  is  a  story  of  the 
heart.  The  homesick  longing  of  a  king  for  an- 
other taste  of  the  innocent  joys  of  his  youth!  The 
readiness  of  three  brave  men  to  hazard  their  lives 
in  order  to  bring  him  what  he  craved  because 
they  loved  him!  The  fine  unwillingness  of  that 
king  to  use  what  they  brought  as  being  now  too 
costly  and  sacred  to  be  given  to  anyone  save  the 
Lord!  Three  bits  of  that  noble  sentiment  which 
has  power  to  move  the  heart  to  those  higher  levels 
of  feeling  and  purpose. 

Out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life.  There- 
fore keep  your  heart  in  the  presence  of  those 
things  which  are  true,  pure  and  just,  honorable, 
lovable  and  reputable.  Keep  it  there  until  the 
inevitable  reaction  comes  in  finer  forms  of  feeling. 
Then  let  those  feelings  course  through  your  veins 
like  rich  red  blood  and  the  God  of  peace  shall  be 
with  you! 


140 


X 

The  Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 

HERE  in  the  Bible  we  find  human  nature  at 
its  best  and  at  its  worst!  There  is  Hght 
and  there  is  shade  and  both  are  needed  to  give 
the  right  effect  in  pictures  and  in  plays  and  in 
Bibles.  We  see  men  bearing  themselves  so  nobly 
upon  the  stage  of  action  that  the  Psalmist  is 
moved  to  say,  "Thou  hast  made  man  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels."  We  see  men  acting  so  basely 
that  the  Apostle  is  moved  to  say,  "God  has  given 
them  up  to  the  uncleanness  of  their  hearts  and 
they  have  changed  the  truth  into  a  lie."  It  is  all 
there  in  the  Book  because  it  is  all  here  in  us.  The 
Bible  holds  the  mirror  up  to  human  nature  and 
shows  us  every  line  in  her  old  face. 

Here  in  a  familiar  story  we  find  words  so  full 
of  life  that  if  you  should  cut  into  them  they  would 
bleed.  The  words  are  the  words  of  a  king,  but 
the  cry  is  the  cry  of  a  father.  He  was  a  man 
first  and  a  king  afterward.  If  all  the  jeweled 
crowns  of  earth  had  been  piled  upon  his  head  in 
that  hour  they  would  not  have  kept  back  that  sob. 
He  had  been  hard  hit  and  now  every  syllable  he 
utters  is  full  of  pain.    "O  Absalom,  my  son,  my 

141 


Yale  Talks 

son!  Would  God  I  had  died  for  thee!"  If  I  could 
take  those  words  and  write  them  upon  the  mind  of 
every  man  here  as  they  stand  written  on  that  page 
of  Scripture,  the  hour  would  be  well  spent. 

You  find  there  three  of  the  plain,  elemental 
facts  in  human  experience — first,  the  love  of  a 
father  for  his  son.  The  father's  name  was  David, 
and  he  was  a  king.  His  son,  therefore,  was  a 
prince  of  the  realm  from  his  birth.  He  was  a 
handsome  young  fellow.  "In  all  Israel  there  was 
none  so  much  to  be  praised  for  his  beauty  as 
Absalom.  From  the  sole  of  his  foot  to  the  crown 
of  his  head  there  was  no  blemish  in  him."  He 
was  not  sent  into  the  world  like  Richard  III,  half 
made  up,  deformed,  unfinished,  so  that  dogs  would 
bark  when  he  limped  by.  He  was  a  fine-looking 
young  chap. 

He  was  easy  and  affable  in  his  manner.  "When 
any  man  came  nigh  to  do  him  obeisance,  Absalom 
put  forth  his  hand  and  took  him  up  and  kissed 
him."  In  that  region  where  the  idea  still  persisted 
that  a  certain  divinity  doth  hedge  about  a  king, 
this  democratic  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  young 
prince  was  most  engaging. 

He  loved  a  good  turnout.  "He  prepared  for 
himself  chariots  and  horses  and  fifty  men  to  run 
before  him."  It  was  as  if  a  modern  young  man 
of  the  fortunate  class  should  have  the  use  of  half- 
a-dozen  high-priced  automobiles.  "My  father 
can  afford  it,"  he  might  say,  "Why  shouldn't  I?" 

142 


X — Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 

This  young  man  was  a  prince  and  he  looked  the 
part  and  acted  the  part. 

In  all  this  his  father  loved  him  as  he  loved  his 
own  soul.  The  father  had  been  a  shepherd  boy 
in  his  youth.  He  had  led  the  sheep  in  green  pas- 
tures and  by  still  waters,  driving  off  the  wolves 
and  the  bears  with  sling  and  stone.  But  now  that 
he  had  risen  from  those  lowly  surroundings  to 
a  place  of  power  and  influence,  he  found  a  peculiar 
joy  in  satisfying  the  ambitions  of  his  handsome 
son.  His  affection  for  him  was  so  real  and  so 
warm  that  he  lived  his  own  life  over  again  with 
many  an  added  pleasure  in  the  unfolding  life  of 
his  boy.  You  could  see  his  eye  kindle  and  hear 
a  new  resonance  in  his  voice  when  he  spoke  of  his 
son. 

If  you  want  to  find  any  man  at  his  best  find 
him  as  a  father.  Take  the  strong  and  tender  out- 
goings of  his  nature  in  the  love  he  bears  for  his 
child.  In  the  love  of  a  man  for  a  woman  there  is 
more  of  the  sense  of  give  and  take.  It  is  an  inter- 
change of  joys  between  equals  in  their  sweet  com- 
panionship. But  in  the  love  of  a  parent  for  a 
child  the  very  unselfishness  of  that  high  interest 
clothes  it  with  an  added  beauty.  And  this  father 
whose  name  was  David  loved  his  son  Absalom 
with  a  beautiful  affection  which  was  like  the  sun 
shining  in  its  strength.  It  is  against  that  fair 
white  screen  that  the  darker  pictures  in  this  pas- 
sage are  to  be  shown. 

143 


Yale  Talks 

In  the  second  place,  we  find  the  son's  rejection 
of  his  father's  love.  Here  was  a  young  man 
doomed  to  defeat  by  the  very  wealth  of  his  advan- 
tages! Had  he  been  compelled  to  make  his  own 
way  up  from  some  other  sheepfold,  he  might  have 
won  out.  But  he  had  everything — everything  but 
a  soul,  and  that  is  something  each  one  must  win 
for  himself  no  matter  where  he  was  born. 

He  was  the  son  of  a  king  with  all  the  advan- 
tages and  all  the  perils  of  high  position.  He  was 
handsome,  and  he  was  courted  and  flattered  until 
his  head  was  turned  clear  around  so  that  he  looked 
habitually  the  wrong  way.  He  was  a  favorite  son 
and  he  had  been  petted  until  he  felt  that  God  had 
made  him  a  good  deal  better  than  the  angels.  He 
felt  that  he  was  "the  whole  thing,"  and  when 
any  young  man  acquires  such  an  aggravated  case 
of  enlarged  head  "on  both  sides,"  as  we  say  in 
pneumonia,  nothing  but  a  double  portion  of  divine 
grace  can  save  him. 

This  young  prince  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
would  like  to  be  king  at  once  without  waiting  for 
the  slow  process  of  nature  to  remove  his  father 
from  the  throne.  He  organized  a  rebellion  and 
went  about  sowing  the  seeds  of  discord  in  his 
father's  kingdom  with  both  hands.  He  stood  at 
the  gates  of  the  city  where  he  would  meet  the 
disaffected.  When  any  man  had  a  lawsuit  and 
came  to  the  king  for  judgment,  Absalom  would 
say  to  him,  "Thy  matter  is  good  and  right,  but 

144 


X — Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 

there  is  no  one  deputed  of  the  king  to  hear  thee. 
O,  that  I  were  made  judge  in  this  land  that  every 
man  might  come  to  me  and  I  would  do  him  jus- 
tice." We  all  know  the  impatience  of  disap- 
pointed litigants.  We  have  read  "Bleak  House" 
and  we  remember  "Jarndyce  and  Jarndyce."  The 
delays  of  the  court  are  proverbial  and  in  the  hearts 
of  those  disaffected  subjects  this  false  son  planted 
the  seeds  of  rebellion. 

"Thus  Absalom  stole  the  hearts  of  the  men  of 
Israel."  From  start  to  finish,  it  was  a  lying, 
thievish  transaction.  His  gracious  manner  clothed 
a  treacherous  heart.  His  showy  courtesy  was  only 
a  polished  tool  to  gain  his  ends.  His  apparent 
interest  in  those  who  suffered  from  the  delays  of 
the  courts  masked  his  own  desire  to  sit  upon  the 
throne  at  once. 

He  knew  that  all  this  would  cut  his  father  to 
the  quick.  It  was  the  sin  against  love.  It  was 
the  action  of  a  thoughtless,  reckless  nature  ready 
to  stab  to  the  heart  those  who  held  him  dear.  All 
sin  is  just  that.  The  laws  of  right  and  wrong 
are  not  abstract  principles  imposed  upon  us  by 
arbitrary  authority.  They  are  the  expression  of 
an  intelligent  good  will  intent  upon  our  well-being. 

"Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother  that  thy 
days  may  be  long  in  the  land  the  Lord  thy  God 
giveth  thee."  This  was  the  word  of  God  from 
Sinai,  and  it  is  the  word  of  every  honest  heart. 
The  very  foundations  of  the  whole  moral  struc- 

I4S 


Yale  Talks 

ture  are  laid  in  the  rightly  ordered  home.  The 
fidelities  and  sanctities,  the  sympathies  and  sacri- 
fices of  family  life  are  meant  to  be  a  finite  copy 
of  the  infinite,  moral  order  which  enfolds  us. 
They  are  meant  to  be  a  perpetual  revelation  of 
Him  from  whom  the  whole  family  in  Heaven  and 
earth  is  named.  "Honor  thy  father  and  thy 
mother" — it  is  the  first  command  with  promise, 
and  the  sons  and  daughters  of  men  who  disregard 
it,  do  so  at  their  peril.  Here  in  our  story  a  hand- 
some young  prince  who  rebelled  against  the  love 
of  his  father  was  doomed.  He  broke  the  first 
command  with  promise  and  his  days  were  not  long 
in  the  land  the  Lord  gave  him. 

He  moved  ahead  in  black  ingratitude,  treacher- 
ously plotting  against  the  authority  of  the  king. 
In  furthering  his  design  he  added  to  all  his  other 
evil  deeds  the  uglier  sin  of  religious  hypocrisy. 
He  knew  the  simple,  genuine  piety  of  his  father's 
heart.  He  had  thus  far  given  that  father  small 
comfort  by  his  own  attitude  toward  religion.  He 
was  a  godless  as  well  as  a  thankless  son. 

But  now  he  announces  to  his  father  that  he  had 
made  a  religious  vow  which  must  be  paid  at 
Hebron,  one  of  the  sacred  shrines  of  the  older  He- 
brew faith.  The  heart  of  David  rejoiced  over 
this  sign  of  an  emerging  piety  in  the  life  of  the 
wayward  son.  Then,  ostensibly  to  make  a  devout 
pilgrimage,  but  in  reality  to  proclaim  his  revolu- 
tion at  the  place  which  had  once  been  the  capital 

146 


X — Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 
of  the  country,  Absalom  sets  out  for  Hebron. 
"And  thus  I  clothe  my  naked  villainy  in  old,  odd 
ends  stolen  forth  from  Holy  Writ  and  seem  a 
saint  when  most  I  play  the  devil." 

What  a  frightful  thing  it  is  to  borrow  the  livery 
of  Heaven  to  serve  Satan!  When  Charles  II  took 
the  Covenant  insincerely,  merely  to  enlist  the  sup- 
port of  the  Scotch,  the  world  condemned  him  more 
severely  for  that  than  for  his  open  acts  of  wicked- 
ness. He  was  counterfeiting  the  coin  of  the  realm 
in  spiritual  affairs.  When  the  false  French  king, 
devoid  of  religious  conviction,  received  the  sacred 
rites  of  the  Roman  Church,  saying  in  cynical 
fashion,  "Paris  is  surely  worth  a  mass  or  two," 
his  deed  was  held  in  greater  abhorrence  than  were 
his  acts  of  immorality.  The  world  hates  a  liar. 
It  demands  that  every  man  should  be  real,  whether 
he  is  gold  or  brass. 

Yonder  at  sacred  Hebron  this  false,  rebellious 
son  set  up  his  standards  of  revolt.  He  called  upon 
the  followers  he  had  won  to  make  their  attack 
upon  rightful  authority.  It  came  so  swiftly  that 
at  first  it  was  successful.  The  king  was  actually 
driven  from  his  capital  in  painful,  perilous  flight. 
He  suffered  this  grievous  wrong  at  the  hands  of 
the  son  of  his  love. 

But  the  success  of  that  ill-starred  movement 
was  short-lived.  When  the  experienced  generals 
and  able  warriors  of  the  old  king  were  once  set 
in  battle  array,  they  speedily  proved  too  much  for 

147 


Yale  Talks 

the  raw  recruits  of  the  young  prince.  The  rebels 
were  routed  and  there  was  a  great  slaughter  of 
twenty  thousand  of  their  men.  The  cowardly 
leader  of  the  revolt,  intent  upon  saving  himself, 
abandoned  his  army  and  fled  for  his  life  upon 
his  own  mule  into  the  midst  of  a  thicket.  Here 
the  long  hair  which  had  been  kept  in  his  vanity 
proved  his  undoing.  His  hair  caught  in  the  prickly 
boughs  of  an  overhanging  oak.  While  he  was 
struggling  to  release  himself  his  mule  ran  out  from 
under  him,  leaving  him  half  suspended  and  help- 
less. Here  the  soldiers  of  the  king  overtook  him 
and  shot  him  through  the  heart  with  three  sharp 
darts,  leaving  him  dead  in  the  midst  of  the  oak. 
And  that  was  the  end  of  the  young  man  who  re- 
belled against  the  love  of  a  father. 

We  come  now  to  the  third  scene,  the  father's 
grief  over  the  fall  of  his  son.  When  that  fateful 
day  dawned  for  the  battle  of  the  king's  army 
with  the  forces  of  revolt,  the  king  himself  sat  in 
the  gate  awaiting  news  from  the  field.  He  had 
charged  his  ablest  general  Joab  the  day  before, 
"Deal  gently  with  the  young  man  for  my  sake — 
deal  gently  with  Absalom."  While  he  sat  thus  in 
the  gate  one  of  his  courtiers  with  younger,  keener 
eyes  saw  a  man  running.  When  the  runner  drew 
near  he  called  out,  "All  is  well!  Blessed  be  the 
Lord  who  hath  delivered  up  the  men  who  rose 
against  my  lord,  the  king." 

But  the  king  brushed  aside  this  report  of  mili- 

148 


X — ^Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 

tary  success — "Is  the  young  man  safe  ?"  he  cried, 
"Is  Absalom  safe?"  This  runner  did  not  know. 
Then  another  man  was  seen  running  and  when 
he  drew  near  he  called  out,  "The  Lord  hath 
avenged  thee  this  day  against  all  them  that  rose 
up  against  thee."  But  the  king  again  thrust  aside 
this  report  of  victory — "Is  the  young  man  Ab- 
salom safe?"  This  messenger  had  been  in  the 
thicket  when  the  end  came  and  he  added  in  quiet 
tones,  "May  all  the  enemies  of  my  lord,  the  king, 
who  rise  up  against  thee  to  do  thee  hurt,  be  as 
that  young  man  is! " 

The  truth  was  out.  His  son  was  dead,  and  dead 
in  the  hour  of  his  wrongdoing.  He  had  sinned 
against  love.  In  cruel,  treacherous  fashion  he  was 
showing  his  contempt  for  his  father's  love  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  was  shot  through  the  heart 
by  the  darts  of  Joab. 

The  king's  son  was  dead  and  he  was  disgraced. 
Where  now  in  this  wide  world  shall  this  broken- 
hearted father  look  for  comfort!  This  was  the 
sorry  return  which  the  handsome  young  prince 
had  made  for  all  the  wealth  of  affection  poured 
out  upon  him.  "O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son,"  he 
cried,  "would  God  I  had  died  for  thee!"  And 
then  "the  king  went  up  to  his  chamber  over  the 
gate" — it  was  a  narrow  little  room.  It  does  not 
take  a  very  big  place  for  a  man  to  cry  in.  And 
the  king  was  there  alone  with  his  grief — his  own 
son  had  broken  his  heart. 

149 


Yale  Talks 

How  these  lives  of  ours  are  knit  up  with  all 
those  other  lives !  No  man  liveth  unto  himself,  no 
man  dieth  unto  himself,  no  man  sinneth  unto  him- 
self. We  are  all  bound  together  in  a  moral  soli- 
darity from  which  there  is  no  escape.  You 
thought  that  sin  of  yours  was  all  your  own  affair 
— that  was  all  you  knew  about  it.  You  found  out 
to  your  sorrow  that  it  was  not  so.  It  was  his 
affair  and  hers  and  His.  When  you  covered  your 
own  life  with  shame,  they  were  all  shamed. 
When  you  stooped  to  that  which  was  wrong,  they 
all  suffered.  They  suffered  more  than  you  did 
because  they  were  better  and  because  they  loved 
you  more  than  you  loved  them,  or  you  would  not 
have  done  it.  The  tears  which  came  in  their  eyes, 
and  the  break  which  came  in  their  voices,  and  the 
weight  which  settled  down  upon  their  hearts  were 
all  put  there  by  your  wrongdoing. 

If  fathers  and  sons  alike  could  exercise  in  ad- 
vance a  bit  of  moral  imagination  touching  the 
effect  of  their  wrongdoing  upon  each  other,  it 
would  serve  as  a  mighty  deterrent.  A  rough  work- 
ingman  left  his  home  one  winter  morning  in 
Chicago  on  his  way  to  the  factory.  There  had 
been  a  heavy  snowfall  the  night  before.  Because 
the  day  was  cold  and  the  man  was  not  feeling 
quite  up  to  the  mark,  he  decided  that  he  must 
have  a  bracer  before  he  went  to  his  work.  He 
was  heading  for  the  rum  shop  at  the  next  corner. 
As  he  plowed  his  way  along  through  the  snow  he 

150 


X — Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 

heard  a  small  voice  pipe  out  behind  him,  "Father, 
I  am  coming,  too.  I  am  putting  my  feet  in  your 
tracks." 

The  man  did  not  go  to  the  saloon  that  morning 
when  the  significance  of  the  situation  dawned 
upon  him.  He  would  make  no  tracks  into  the 
door  of  a  rum  shop  for  his  boy.  And  if  every 
son  on  earth  could  look  ahead  and  picture  to  him- 
self the  pain  and  the  loss  which  his  evildoing 
would  bring  to  the  heart  of  his  father,  it  would 
give  him  pause.  He  would  say  as  one  said  long 
ago,  "How  can  I !  How  can  I  smite  the  fair  face 
of  affection  with  the  foul  hand  of  an  evil  deed?" 

It  matters  little  what  form  this  rebellion  against 
love  may  take.  It  may  take  any  one  of  a  thou- 
sand forms.  Here  in  the  story  it  took  the  form 
of  a  political  conspiracy  against  the  rightful 
authority  of  the  king.  It  may  come  in  the  coarse 
sins  of  the  flesh,  which  bring  the  flush  of  shame 
to  the  faces  of  parents  when  their  own  sons  are 
guilty.  It  may  take  the  form  of  arrogance,  selfish- 
ness, cold  contempt  for  the  dearest  desires  and 
aspirations  of  those  who  love  us.  It  may  come 
in  a  flippant,  scornful  rejection  of  those  principles 
of  godly  living  which  mean  everything  to  those 
who  hold  us  dear.  In  each  case  the  evil  is  the  same 
— the  thoughtless,  selfish,  godless  soul  draws  his 
dagger  and  stabs  the  heart  of  affection  to  the  core. 
In  each  case  it  is  a  sin  against  love,  and  I  care  not 
where  that  evildoer  may  be  doing  his  own  bit  of 

151 


Yale  Talks 

iniquity,  if  he  will  listen  he  will  hear  that  old  He- 
brew yonder  on  the  hills  of  Judea  sobbing  yet. 
"O  Absalom,  my  son,  would  God  I  had  died  for 
thee!" 

We  face  here  one  of  the  cardinal  truths  of  our 
Christian  faith.  Why  is  there  a  cross  on  the  spire 
of  the  church?  What  does  Calvary  mean  to  us? 
What  moral  efficacy  has  that  great  truth  of  the 
atonement?  The  main  force  of  it  all  lies  here. 
When  the  Son  of  Man  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
evil  men  on  Calvary,  it  was  a  revelation  in  time 
of  something  which  is  eternal  and  universal.  It 
was  the  supreme  manifestation  of  the  eternal 
heartache  and  heartbreak  in  the  life  of  God  be- 
cause of  the  sins  of  His  children.  There  is  a 
Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 
When  any  man  sins  the  guilt  of  it  and  the  pain 
of  it  are  felt  all  the  way  up  to  the  Great  White 
Throne  because  the  man  is  a  child  of  God,  and 
the  God  who  sits  upon  that  throne  is  "Our 
Father."  He  is  wounded  by  our  transgressions. 
He  is  bruised  by  our  iniquities.  It  is  by  His 
stripes  that  we  are  healed  and  the  chastisement  of 
our  peace  is  upon  Him.  The  cry  of  the  king,  "O 
Absalom,  my  son,"  is  a  human  echo  of  the  divine 
cry  which  comes  to  us  across  the  ages. 

Hear  this  old  Hebrew  saying  what  fatherhood 
has  always  said  in  the  presence  of  the  evil  doing 
of  its  children — "O  Absalom,  my  son,  how  could 
you?"    You  notice  the  term  he  uses  even  in  that 

152 


X — Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 

hour  of  pain.  He  does  not  say,  "Absalom,  the 
traitor,  the  leader  of  a  political  revolt,  the  dema- 
gogue who  stole  the  hearts  of  the  people."  It  was, 
"Absalom,  my  son,"  and  that  was  the  tragedy  of 
it.  And  the  father  of  the  prodigal  in  that  classical 
passage  on  redemption  in  harking  back  to  the 
days  of  his  pain  did  not  say — "That  fast  young 
man  who  wasted  his  substance  in  riotous  living! 
That  spendthrift  who  ran  through  all  I  gave  him 
and  began  to  be  in  want."  It  was  none  of  this — 
"It  is  meet  that  we  should  make  merry,  for  this 
my  son  was  lost  and  is  found;  he  was  dead  and 
is  alive  again."  It  is  "my  son"  throughout,  for 
there  is  a  love  that  will  not  let  us  go. 

When  we  turn  the  reverse  side  of  this  shield, 
how  glorious  are  the  lines  engraved  upon  it! 
Nothing  on  earth  or  in  Heaven  suffers  as  affection 
suffers  when  it  is  outraged  by  the  objects  of  its 
devotion.  And  nothing  on  earth  or  in  Heaven 
can  rejoice  as  affection  rejoices  when  it  sees  the 
travail  of  its  soul  and  is  satisfied  in  the  realization 
of  its  dearest  hopes. 

Have  the  skies  ever  heard  a  lovelier  strain  of 
music  than  the  one  which  broke  through  when 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  baptized  in  the  river  Jor- 
dan? It  was  God  the  Father  who  spoke  in  that 
high  hour  and  said,  "This  is  My  Beloved  Son  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased!"  Here  was  a  Son 
who  did  always  the  Will  of  the  Father!  Here 
was  a  Son  who  at  the  end  of  His  life  could 

153 


Yale  Talks 

look  up  and  say,  "Father,  I  have  finished  the 
work  Thou  gavest  Me  to  do."  And  the  satisfac- 
tion of  that  Father's  heart  in  that  supreme  hour 
over  the  right  life  of  His  Son  was  enough  to  set  all 
the  angels  in  the  skies  to  singing. 

I  have  thought  of  all  this  many  times  in  these 
recent  months  when  the  call  has  come  for  the 
young  men  of  our  country  to  don  the  garb  of 
public  service.  There  were  shortsighted  indi- 
viduals who  were  saying  that  the  sons  of  good 
fortune  were  given  over  to  luxury  and  self-indulg- 
ence, that  the  moral  fibre  had  been  eaten  out  of 
them.  How  little  they  knew!  The  fine  material 
of  moral  passion  and  of  national  vigor  was  all 
there  in  waiting.  When  the  voice  of  the  President 
and  of  a  great  international  necessity  rang  out 
saying,  "Who  will  go  for  us,  whom  shall  we  send?" 
the  response  came  back  in  that  same  hour  from 
the  best  we  breed,  ''Here  am  I,  send  me." 

And  when  they  came  to  be  weighed  in  the  bal- 
ance, they  were  not  found  wanting.  They  had 
not  laid  waste  their  powers  in  dissipation  and  vice. 
They  were  able  to  pass  those  medical  examina- 
tions which  take  only  the  firstlings  of  the  flock. 
It  was  the  battle  of  the  Lord  which  was  to  be 
fought  and  they  were  lined  up  on  the  side  of  moral 
idealism. 

It  has  brought  anxious  days  and  sleepless  hours 
at  night  to  the  hearts  of  the  fathers  and  mothers 
who  have  seen  them  go.    They  loved  their  boys 

154 


X — Wounds  of  Wrongdoing 
as  David  loved  Absalom  and  now  they  saw  them 
going  forth  into  the  realm  of  fire  and  sword.    The 
parents  could  only  remain  behind  to  wait  and 
watch  and  pray. 

But  how  much  more  terrible  it  would  have  been 
in  those  grave  times  had  their  sons  been  all  unwill- 
ing or  unfit  for  that  high  service!  How  much 
more  grievous  had  these  parents  been  compelled 
to  see  what  David  saw,  the  lives  of  their  sons 
stained  with  cowardice  and  treachery!  The 
hearts  of  those  fathers  and  mothers,  heavy  with  a 
great  anxiety,  could  still  look  up  to  Him  who 
spared  not  His  own  Son,  but  freely  delivered  Him 
up  for  us  all.  They  could  gain  from  Him  comfort 
and  courage  for  their  own  hour  of  need. 

And  nowhere  has  this  response  of  young  man- 
hood to  the  call  of  duty  been  more  complete  or 
more  satisfying  than  in  our  colleges.  We  have 
seen  it  here  on  the  Campus  at  Yale  as  other  men 
and  women  have  seen  it  in  all  the  colleges  and 
universities  of  the  land.  The  spirit  of  it  has  been 
finely  expressed  in  these  lines. 

"I  saw  the  spires  of  Oxford 

As  I  was  passing  by, 
The  gray  spires  of  Oxford 

Against  a  pearl-gray  sky. 
My  heart  was  with  the  Oxford  men 

Who  went  abroad  to  die. 


155 


Yale  Talks 

"The  years  go  fast  at  Oxford, 

The  golden  years  and  gay; 
The  hoary  colleges  look  down 

On  careless  boys  at  play; 
But  when  the  bugles  sounded  war, 

They  put  their  games  away. 

"They  left  the  peaceful  river, 

The  cricket-field,  the  quad, 
The  shaven  lawns  of  Oxford, 

To  seek  a  bloody  sod — 
They  gave  their  merry  youth  away 

For  country  and  for  God. 

"God  rest  you  happy,  gentlemen, 
Who  laid  your  good  lives  down, 

Who  took  the  khaki  and  the  gun 
Instead  of  cap  and  gown. 

God  bring  you  to  a  fairer  place 
Than  even  Oxford  town." 

And  when  those  young  men,  who  have  been 
striving  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father,  have  fought 
their  good  fight  and  have  finished  their  course 
and  have  kept  their  faith,  they  will  find  laid  up 
for  them  a  crown  of  rejoicing.  They  will  find 
that  they  have  filled  the  hearts  of  their  fathers 
on  earth  and  of  their  Father  in  Heaven  with  a 
joy  unspeakable. 


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